Jocko Podcast - 492: The Path Is Hard. Team Dealer Bravo Company 2-6 Infantry. With Ryan Jackson.

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground< Bravo Company 2-6 IN "Team Dealer" owned and controlled its battlespace, Al-Taʾmīm. The regulars of Team Dealer were never attached to the command of other units. All units planning operations in Al-Taʾmīm, including NSW (SEALs) and other SOF or OGA units always reported to Team Dealer before planning ops in Al-Taʾmīm.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 492 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Yacro. Good evening. The dealer NCOs carefully placed Lanzerens remains into the ambulance for the final 100-yard ride to the helipad. First Sergeant Shaw commanded order arms, and in unison, the salutes dropped. Wordlessly, the formation closed ranks behind the ambulance and followed it into the darkness to the edge of the helipad. The chopping sound of two Marine CH-46 sea-night helicopters in the distance soon replaced the constant hum of generators powering Camp Ramadi.

As the whir of the rotors grew louder, the members of the silent crowd stood a little straighter. As the helicopters flared to land, a dust cloud of sand and pebbles filled the air, prickling the faces of the assembled soldiers. The back ramps of the sea night dropped, and two crew chief moved swiftly across the helipad, came to attention, saluted, then led the dealer NCOs to the aircraft for Lanzeran's trip back home.

Colonel McFarland and I stood next to the ambulance in silence. Within minutes, the back ramp rose. The assembled crowd snapped to attention. As the wind of the engines increased, First Sergeant Shaw's voice filled the air, again. Present arms. With the blade spinning faster, the lifting helicopters prop wash, blue, sand harder into the faces of the troops gathered in formation, this time holding their salutes until the birds were out of sight. Again, Shaw commanded the formation. Order, arms. For Staff Sergeant Lanzarin, it was the beginning of his journey back to his grieving family. For the rest of us,

It was time to continue the mission. Some soldiers left immediately, grieving on their own. Others milled about in small groups telling stories about their departed friend. Remember that time? Or you remember when he took the... Some just stood quietly sobbing or kicking the dirt and vowing vengeance. As we walked down the hill from the helipad, Colonel McFarlane put his arm around me and asked me how I was doing. Sir, I'm fine, we're fine.

I replied as I slinked out of his embrace. I had a job to do. And for the sake of the unit, I could not go wobbly now. My job was to lead the living. Tony, you know dealer has taken 25% casualties, he asked as I was lighting a cigar, getting back into character. Yes, sir. More counting the guys from Dagger.

Chris Stilling's advisor team has lost almost 50%. I acknowledged. Colonel McFarland had seen a lot of injury and death in the past four months. As had we all. Up to that point, I had never thought of it as a percentage, but as individuals. Scotty Love and Cromby were dead. Rosanzi had lost his legs and Sergeant McCool was shot. Now Sergeant Lance was gone.

My guess is that one of the staff officers at the brigade headquarters ran the numbers and the magnitude of what team dealer was accomplishing and the cost associated with their success hit Colonel McFarland all at once. I'll get you guys some more help, he promised. I was truly grateful. I thanked him, and he turned and walked away into the night. And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Ramadi Declassified and was written by Colonel Tony Dean as a book that I discussed with Colonel Dean

on podcast 452. And in that section of the book, and on the podcast, we talked about team dealer, death dealers, Bravo Company, second battalion, 6th,

infantry, 1st armored division, who was attached to 1,35 armor under Colonel Dean. And we talked about their aggressive drive to accomplish the mission despite the sacrifice

and the heavy losses. And while it was Colonel Sean McFarland with the strategic goal and leaders like Colonel Dean turning that strategy into operational objectives, it was the soldiers and Marines in the companies, platoons, squads, and fire teams that were out there making it happen

and taking the fight to the enemy in companies like dealer. It is an honor to have one of the soldiers of team dealer with us here tonight to share his experiences in violent combat and his experiences after. Staff sergeant retired

Ryan Jackson. Thank you. Ryan, thanks for joining us, man. Thanks for having us. I'm glad we got connected, which I guess we got connected again through the reunion that's coming up. Yeah.

The ready first Ramadi reunion, which is going to take place January of 2026. 20 years. That's crazy. 20 year. That's crazy. The 20 year. And we'll get into the fact that you, you ran a little 10-year reunion a few years back for dealer. We'll get into some of that stuff. But that's how we got reconnected. And we, of course, talked about the fact that you've got a lot of healing from

a four-legged friend, right? Your dog caliber. Yep. And we'll get into that as well with, with Canines for Warriors, an awesome organization that has helped out a lot of service members. So we'll get into some of that, but let's start about, let's talk about just where you came from, some of your background. Where were you born? Dallas, Texas. And then, and then where'd you grow up? We eventually moved to Snellville, Georgia. What's it? Snellville? Yeah. Snellville. Yeah. Everybody, somebody. It's the motto. Well, everybody's somebody? Yeah. I like it. It's right next to Stone Mountain, if you've ever heard of that. It's a big, yeah. Yeah. So it's right on the road from that. And then eventually moved up to Hiawasi, Georgia, which is right outside of Helen. It's top of

the bottom of Appalach Mountains. And what did your parents do? My mom worked for the first company that had the private modem. She sold that. Oh, dang. My dad left when I was like three or four. My grandparents had a big role in raising me and stuff. My granddad worked for EMS, Electromagnetic Sciences.

They actually invented the cell phone tower repeaters. Okay. And the tracking system for the Hellfire missile and all that stuff. So when you were, when you were, growing up, were you spending a lot of time with your grandparents then? Yeah. Yeah. Because your dad, so your dad was out of the picture. Yep. And, and then what was, uh, growing up, did you actually live with your grandparents? No, no, I just, you know, I was with them on the weekends, um, and then some evenings, they were close enough. We'd go over there for dinner and stuff.

And they'd pick me up from school, pick up my sister and stuff. Okay. And so that was the, sibling scenario was one sister? Yeah. I got a half sister and two other half sisters, but no contact with them. Okay. Um, and then what were you into when you're growing up? Uh, dirt bikes, hockey and trouble and girls. Georgia has a hockey scene. Roller hockey. Roller hockey. Okay.

You didn't specify roller. Yeah. I actually never roller skated in my life. I started out on roller blades and started playing hockey. And was there like club? Like what was happening on there? Leaks. Yeah.

Are people still playing roller hockey? I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe. I saw some comedy talk, some comedian talking about roller blades. Yeah. And it was like, you know, once somebody said something negative about at rollerblades and everyone got rid of them real quick. It's like everyone had him and then someone said, no, those are for girls and then everyone threw them away real quick.

We used to do like the aggressive skating and like grinding on sidewalks and stuff. And that's where you were into growing up. And then dirt bikes? Yeah. We had a lot of land up in North Georgia. So my granddad is always big on dirt bikes and motorcycles and stuff. So I grew up my first dirt bike. I think I was like six.

Okay. And I was that saying? I had them riding all the time. I would race them and motocross races. Oh, he used motocross and everything, huh? Yeah. Do you ever look at one of those army units where they have like motorcycles? I guess that's SF.

Yeah, that would be cool. I know S has motorcycles. Yeah, all the cool toys. Yeah. And then what about like school? Were you into school? How were you doing in school? Oh, I was there.

I had the potential, but I smoked a lot of weed and some drugs. and I didn't really apply myself. That's the best answer I've ever heard for how school. He's like, I was there. I attended. I mean, looking back, like, I know I could have done a lot better. And I actually told my granddad, you know, I don't want to go to college right now because I don't feel like I'm mature enough to go.

I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to, you know, party and not show up to class. So I didn't really have anybody to push me to do that. I'd come home and do my homework if I wanted to or not. Did you ever think about the military? at a young age or when did you start thinking about it? Probably when I was like 10 or 11. I was in Civil Air Patrol.

I don't know if I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I did ROTC. Apparently they weren't drug testing in the Civil Air Patrol. No, no. It was always something I looked up to, you know. I think inside I was looking for like the structure and like the discipline and, you know, male role models in my life that I didn't really have.

So I was always bigger than military and kind of going that way. went to go join the Marines like 17. Failed a drug test. Okay. They actually do test. Oh, yeah. This ain't the Civil Air Patrol anymore? No, it's not.

So were you still in high school when you tried to join the Marine Corps? Yeah. So I actually joined the Army on September 12th, 2001, like right after 9-11. I came, I walked into art class under the influence, obviously, and bad decisions. And everything just kind of clicked because, like, We are sitting home from school. We're out the next couple of days. And I was just thinking.

Are you a senior in high school? Your senior year in high school is when September 11th happened? Yeah. Okay. So you see it happening on TV? Yep. And then what? You go into school and.

Yeah. And watch it play out, you know, on TV and stuff. And the whole realization of everything was going on and looking back and, you know, we're going to war and all this stuff. And I just kind of, I was like, what am I doing? I'm not going to go to college. You know, not going to do anything. So I was going to go in the Army.

I'd already tried for the Marines before that because they have what's called a delayed entry program where you join and you have to wait until you graduate. So September 12th, I went into the Army recruiter's office and I watched about six or seven different VHS tapes. I recruited commercialists and hit out of the infantry

and I was like that one. So they're just telling you different MOSs? Yeah, yeah. And then you finally saw infantry. Yeah. And you said, that's me. Yep. But you're only a junior,

you're only a senior in high school and it's September. Yeah. And so now you have to wait another what six months or eight months before you can leave. Yeah, about six months. But they had stuff where you had to show up. We had to do PT on the weekends.

Did they pee? Did they piss test you? Oh yeah. Yeah. So by that time you were like, all right, you realize you can't be smoking pot all the time. Yeah, I mean,

I was in it too. I was invested. I was like, I actually had a special forces contract. Oh, nice. And it worked out that way of because it was fast as we deployed. What kind of music were you to when you were growing up? Like sublime,

like techno stuff. Okay. See, I had a buddy his, his mom or his stepdad. He managed concerts and stuff in Atlanta. So we got tickets to all the concerts and stuff. Check. I actually spoke to Rob Zombie at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. That's pretty cool.

That's legit. That's a good story. Yeah. So once you enlisted in delayed entry program, then you realize like, all right, I'm going for this. Yeah. Stop smoking pot. did you perform at school at all or not really because you didn't care um yeah i started picking up a little bit one like stopped smoking cleared my head up a lot because as a kid that young you know

smoking that's not good for how long were you smoking pomp for like what age since i was like 13 dang yeah yeah i get bad influences my life um easy access to it and just looking back you know like i said i had the potential to be good in school but i just wasn't applying it so it was so are you training to like you're going to go to a special forces selection at this time yeah they they do all kinds of PT and stuff I had some pretty good I can't remember the recruiters but I know it was aggressive like they come pick me up of the house it wasn't a mandatory thing but they're like you want to do it it's here and so they'd come pick me up on the weekends and I'd go do PT and just learn army stuff and I think it was my recruiter was invested in me which I wish I remembered his name

shout out whoever that was good job yeah so then you you get done with high school your senior year you make it through with no drama, you graduate, and then it's off to boot camp? Yep. And so now it's what? So have we even gone into Afghanistan? Yeah, we would have gone into Afghanistan, but Iraq's not going off yet. Right. Okay.

How's boot camp? It was eye-opening. So, you know, I wasn't that athletic. It was starting from the hockey and the mudducross. Like, I wasn't, I didn't know I couldn't run until I got to base of training. I'm still not a fan to this day. But, so I had some issues with that. But, you know, that's what it makes Australians forward.

Break you down and build you back up. And that's exactly what happened. I caught on quick. I knew all the marching stuff already. So that was easy for me. Oh, that's from ROTC and high school. Yeah. So I did like the drill team and all that stuff.

Did you do ROTC all through high school? Yeah. Even when you were smoking pot, you were going on ROTC? Yeah, I wouldn't smoke a bad. It was just after school. That's classic. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.

Did you have that moment in boot camp or did you have a feel from where you're like what the hell did I just do to my life? No, I really didn't. But I feel like every day was more exciting. Like we'd do something different. I mean, those a few times on a 12-mile road march where I'm like, well, what did I get into? You know? 4 o'clock in the morning, you're on mile 11 or stuff like, or long runs.

But did you feel like you kind of found your thing? Yeah, it's exactly what happened. Yeah. I know. That's definitely what I felt when I got in the Navy when I was like, okay, cool. I got this, this I can do. And the Navy is a different. kind of boot camp, especially when I went through. It was like, it was literally about folding

underwear and just the lamest stuff. But, uh, yeah, got through it. Um, did you have any major challenges besides running? Um, not really. I mean, I didn't really, I didn't miss home. I mean, I literally, I joined to get away from home. I get to get away from my friends at the time. Because, you know, bad influences and all that stuff. I joined to keep myself out of trouble. And so, yeah, yeah, only running, that was my, that was the hardest thing. And then I found out I was really good at ruck marching and then really good at shooting and really good at a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's a thing, man. Like there's different types of muscle genetics that you can have.

And you can be like an endurance guy or you can be a really fast sprinter. Right. And then there's dudes that are good at rock humping. Yeah. Which is a good thing to be good at when you're in the military. Yeah. I was like that too. I never won a damn four mile race in the seal teams.

And I never won a hundred yard dash either, but I'd win some rucks. Yeah. I could rock and ruck. Paying for now. And then what was after that? Did you go to AIT after that? It was one station unit training. So infantry at Fort Bending, it's just all straight.

I think it's 18 weeks, 18, 19 weeks, whatever it is. But it's one station. So basic training, and you just kind of phase into infantry training. They just incorporate it all together. So that's kind of unique. I don't think there's any other MOSs that do that. So after that, graduated basic training, December went home on leave for 30 days.

and I already had orders to Germany because that was part of my enlistment contract, go to Europe. How was it like when you went home for leave? It was very different, very different. Were you disconnected from your friends enough to be like, yeah, this is... I started to realize a disconnection.

I've been gone for six months and you guys haven't done anything. Like, you're not in school, you're not in school, you're not in school, you're on school. Like, that could have been me. And then, like, people started looking up to me and I didn't really understand. I was like, I just did this thing, you know?

But some of my friends even came my graduation. They were kind of impressed with that. So it was definitely different, but it was quick too because, you know, I didn't have anything to take with me. So just my army stuff and spit time with the family and did Christmas and then I was off to Germany. And how was your experience getting to Germany now? Well, I was 18. 19. So that was a little eye-opening.

It's my first, like, major first, like, major. flight and it was like nine hours. And then I got there and it was a processing unit and my name was like, they were going alphabetical order and then they skipped over my name and I was like, that can't be good. And then some guy leaned over at me, he's going to go, you're going to the rock. And I was like, what? So bomb holder Germany is known as the rock. It's just a small military baseball on top of a hill in Germany. So they called my name and said, Jackson, go on the rock and called it bomb holder. And then me and four other guys

loaded up in a van and the longest van ride in snow at nighttime, just going around mountains and shit. That made me a little eye-opener. I got to my unit and immediately got hazed by an entire platoon. I had no idea what I was doing. Woke up the next morning

my squad leader told me was going to be a 240 gunner. Get some. Yeah, 19. So that's pretty cool. I only shot it once, you know, at basic training on a range on a tripod. And at this point,

the U.S. Army and the U.S. military is gearing up to invade Iraq. Right. Did you, at 19 years old, make that connection or did they let you know? When you landed on the ground, were they like, hey, we're going to Iraq? No.

It wasn't for about another month after we were getting there. And then all of a sudden, they had a random month-long training mission in Hollensfeld, Germany, and Grafenvier. So in Grafenvier, they do the gunnery. Hollensfeld, it's like applying all the action and movement contact lanes and stuff like that. And we did that back to back. And then they're like, by the way, we get done to this, we're deploying.

So, I mean, I was in Germany for three months before we deployed. Dang. Yeah. I didn't get to do anything. And then you guys deployed to Kuwait? No, we went straight. Oh, we weren't in Kuwait for like four days. We were part of the invading force and going into Baghdad, 2003.

How much time were you sitting around and waiting for the invasion to take place? Less than a week. Like, it was that quick. It was more like in-processing. Here's your vehicles. Here's your guns. Here's your stuff. And we were gone.

Dang. So you weren't part of that force that's like waiting on the border for months on end. No, no. You just showed up in the invasion started. Yeah. Yeah. Dang. What was your, what was your attitude is that invasion was kind of kicking off?

Exciting. scared. We invaded Iraq and soft-skinned Humvees in the back of five-ton trucks. And then Bradley, so it was... America's finest, or the world's greatest fighting force, right? She was bitter.

Canvas doors on the Humvees. Yeah, the invasion was wild. Just blasted away all out to Baghdad. And you were, what, a 240 gunner? In what vehicle? What kind of vehicle? Just a soft-skinned Humvee. Like, we had it strapped down on sandbags,

like on soft-skinned Humvee. I'll be your 240 was strapped down in sandbags yeah like on a tripod it was I got pictures of it it's kind of sketchy looking back on it dude I got to get some of those pictures they didn't have doors on I'm like this what about and you know that's crazy this is the first person I've talked to where their lead up time was like very short most people were sitting there for months no like we were going doing the drills with the with the gas masks and the mop level four gear and all that stuff we did a few of those yeah we were walking around a mop gear for a while we had the scut attacks but it was quick. And then what was as you guys are pushing up like what what are you doing? Are you just

securing the road? What's happening? Well, we're just in a convoy and our our end goal was the cross sabres in Baghdad. Okay. And that's a freaking legit. Yeah. That's a legit end state. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And then Saddam's Palace, the one right there in between the Tigris and Euphrates. Live there for a little while. Um, just, I mean, it wasn't like crazy. combat because third idea had already come through but just going I mean we're still getting you're still engaging in T-72s and still engaging you know moogh fight not moose fighters at the time it's still a rocky army at the time um but we're like literally we had dudes sitting on boxes of water facing out in the back of a five-ton truck and just like taking shots and I don't think we stop we stopped for a

couple days but I know it was like 67 days before I took a shower and as as you must have been the lowest ranking guy in your in your platoon? Luckily, I was PFC because I already had all the RTC and stuff. So I got graduate-based training as a PFC. How was your knowledge of what was going on from like a strategic picture? Well, I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I just did what I was told at the time I was supposed to do it.

And when I was off, I was either burning shit or pulling guard to war else. And it was 67 days before you took a shower. Yeah. And that was at Saddam's Palace. and someone who busted a water pipe on accident and it was made like a shower and everybody was like, oh, and some new dudes came up

and put some ponchos around it and that was our shower. Do you remember getting shot at for the first time? Yeah. Were you like, oh, this is it? Were you ready for it? I definitely wasn't ready for it.

It was eye-opening. It was different. In infantry-based training, you do the, what's it? It's like a movement to contact lane where you have to like crawl on Constantine War where you get shot.

shot at. So you hear like the snap and the crack and stuff and the bullets go by you and you're like all right that's what it is. But you know when they like start hitting the vehicles and stuff, that's a different story. Luckily they weren't that good a shot back then. So but did you guys take any casualties? No. And by the way, what unit had you what what company were you a part of at this point? Same thing. Bravo 26. You were straighted at Bravo 26 and you went right to war with them. Yep. Dang. Awesome. But you didn't take any casualties? Nope. Smooth sailing relatively speaking. Yep. Did you see the Iraqi populace like with the flags of American flags and stuff like that?

Yeah. One thing, going back a little, well, that's the second appointment. Yeah, so as we were going up, we had all of our rucksacks and our A bags strapped to the outside of Bradley. So, you know, they'd be outside waving, the white flags and stuff. And kids were exciting. But also we had dudes that had sticks with knives taped at the end of them. And they were cutting our bags as we were driving by. So when we got there, nobody had anything.

So not only not taking a shower for a while, you don't have to, like you've got the clothes you got, if you're lucky, you know, if your rucks had to get cut open. Dang. I guess nobody stopped to fix that. There's nowhere else to put it. So we're just kind of carry it with us. And then once you got up to, did you settle in anywhere in Baghdad? Is that where you settled into? Yeah, we settled at the museum of presence to the president.

It's right outside of Saddam's one palace next to the cross sabers. Okay. We had to clean out. The museum's attached to the cross savers. So we live there. We had to clean it out first because Luters that came in. there. And we had US customs agents in there that were like making sure we didn't see anything or protecting stuff. And I know Saddam, uh, he had like a prison in the bottom of it and there

was some gold down there. And I don't know some SF dudes like blew a hole in there. I don't know what happened to that. But I think that's why customs was there. So we secure that because it was supposed to be like a tier one site. And then we moved to the power plant. Where was the power plant also in Baghdad? Yeah, like right down the road. And you would just set up shop there? Yeah. And then almost like a little mini combat outpost. Yeah, pretty much like one of the first ones, I guess. We just pull, you know, pull guard on towers and do patrols out of the base. And then how long was this whole deployment?

It ended up being 15 months. So it was supposed to be 12, but we got extended. Three a days before we were supposed to go home. So it took you, what, a couple weeks to push up into Baghdad? Yeah. And then you settled in and then you stayed there for 15 months. Oh, well, we stayed in Baghdad for, I'd say, eight or nine months. And then we did Mutata al-Sauder, his body army, which is like, all right.

So the way that deployment worked was the very first couple months was like intense. And then it was nothing. This was before the insurgency started. So it was kind of, it was nothing. Like, you know, the Iraqis were super friendly to us. They loved us being there. We were doing good stuff. And then all of a sudden the insurgency just kicked off.

And it's like they flipped a switch. Like, turn the light on, the cockroaches, you know, run away. And then they started doing all kinds of stuff. I remember the first IED we found was literally like a bomb next to a side of a highway and a dude like sitting on a burn. Yeah, it almost looks like a wild thing. Yeah, that's exactly what that's what we say. I gave him to my mind when you said that.

What month do you remember the insurgency get starting to get gnarly? Ooh. So that point was March. We were supposed to come home in September, I think, March to March. I'd say about eight or nine months through. I can't remember the months, whatever. And it was raw at that point. Like, I don't think they know what they were doing either.

They were just like, I don't want you on here anymore. What did we can't my own? Yeah. Yeah, this is when I look back at this whole thing. So I was in, I got to Iraq in like, in the fall of 03. And we were doing a bunch of hits and taking down targets and blah, blah, blah. But the whole time we were targeting Mukta al-Sauder and, you know, like different groups, we're going to go hit them. but no one could ever get permission

because no one knew what was going to happen. Everyone's kind of afraid if we hit Muttta al-Sadr like does the whole country turn into a disaster? And so someone had got the bright idea to send us to go and hit Muttata al-Sauders like one of his top lieutenants was this guy named Yikubi. And so we went and captured Yikubi

and that was in April of 2004. And like the next day, it was total chaos in Iraq. And it was like, there was like I woke up in the morning and there was I looked out because I was I was writing by Baghdad International Airport and like there was just smoke coming from vehicles all over the highway there was people were getting mortared it was just really bad yeah and so that was sort of a turning point looking back in when there was a real escalation of violence and I don't

think anybody predicted that yeah I don't think because I think we would have been like we as coalition forces would have been like, well, let's continue to negotiate. Let's figure something out. But they wanted to see what would happen. And that actually might have been an even worse move. Yeah. Right? Because now you still had solder leading his people.

And yet you really pissed him off. It was almost like the joke about like flicking a bear. Like flicking a bear in the balls, right? Yeah. You're going to, you might just kill the thing. But they didn't do that. And so things started getting. much, much worse.

And then for me, my platoon left. Like, you know, another couple weeks later, we were out of there. And then we get back to America and we're watching just downward spiral. Right.

I think the turning point I remember the most is when we killed Saddam's sons because we were there, we were outside security and stuff. And I remember once, you know, they put some javelins in there

and all kinds of stuff and, you know, the palace and stuff. And I remember that night or the next night, it was just AK fire. Like, Tracers going up in the sky, just going everywhere and we were like what the hell's going on and that from i think from then on it kind of

started getting a little wild yeah some of the other things was the uh uh abu gray prison thing that was bad too because now you had al jazeera was putting that stuff and americans are torturing iraqis and that was not helpful at all either so there's a bunch of things that led to it uh things are getting worse and worse did so what was your opt tempo were you guys and what were you guys doing like what was your mission secure in the power plant and the palace. So it was a pretty mundane thing. You know, I think it was like eight on, 10 off and some admin stuff. You know, it's back when we're still literally burning our shit. Like, you know, you'd have a 50 gallon drums. You'd put some diesel field, there and burn it.

And as a private, you're starting it with a stick. We had one private that, uh, he decided he didn't want to do that anymore. So he put too much in there and ended up burning down our shitters. So we're sitting in boxes for a while. Then they finally got us port parties. And that's where you. And that's where you were for for how many months were you sitting on the power plant so our unit we had three different tier one sites so they were rotate us through so there was the power plant that was like a gypsy camp where i forget i think they were curds and they were just kind of like put there so we had like watch over them i don't know the point behind that mission like i said i was just private so um and then there was one of i think it was something at biop something like that

so we'd go up there and they would rotate us like every month or so go through it just ball and Security dude. Just doing patrols. It got kind of mundane. But patrols inside the wire? No, outside. Like through like downtown, back down. Okay.

So you were pushing out patrols. Yeah. How was the, how was the enemy activity at that time during that deployment? It wasn't really much of it. I mean, it wasn't, it didn't really kick off until, I'd say like the last four months of our deployment.

So one big thing is we were three to four days before deployment. Like we were turning in ammo. Like we were getting our rallies ready to send back to Germany. And so Al-Sauder did his thing. There was a British CAC building or something. They got overran. Oh, yeah. Down in Najaf. Yeah. So I went to QRF that thing. And I didn't get there in time. So when that popped off. We hit, we went to Machmedia, Al-Tuatha, and then Najaf in four days. And we ended up staying in Najaf. And that was shitty. I mean, that was bad. We got mortared every single day to the point

where we were putting sandbags on the roof. I remember getting up to go take a shower one time because they brought the trailers in and we came back in a mortar had laid on top of the building and my cot had shrapnel in it. I was like, well, that could have sucked and then we had one dude that was in the shower and a mortar hit and you could see

like the silhouette of his body from like where I went through. He ended up going home. That was like you can't do anything about that. You know, you're outside whether you're cleaning your gun or whatever, you just get mortar like there's not many places to run to so that was a little shitty but and how long do you stay down in the job for uh we were there for three months and what were you doing down there

that was a little intense um i remember so the day we found out that we were getting extended um so i when i came home mid-tour leave i proposed to my now ex-wife and i so we were supposed to go back i i was planning a wedding it was supposed to be in june i think um army had a bit other ideas So after we took over that British CPA building, they left behind all kinds of stuff. And they left behind a sat phone. And I remember sitting on top of a building, the CPA building, I think, and calling my ex and being like, we're not going home. And before I could get that off, a Kiowa came down to a straight from the middle because

Sauter's Army started marching through the street. And then Kiowa just came down and that's the last time I'm going to talk to her for about a month and a half that's when it started getting wild they had a lot more iEDs and stuff and you guys were were you guys at the CPA yeah you guys went there to reinforce that thing yeah awesome and you're getting attacked but it's but you're but you're staying in a static position or you still pushing out patrols uh we're still pushing out patrols and both you know you'd be on a guard tower and then you get down and go do a patrol or something like that and the attacks there was nothing no strategy behind it You know, they just pop out from on a wall and take a pop shot.

It's like we were fighting ghosts. We never get to really see them. And rarely when we have like actual gun fights. And so you got extended three months or four months, something like that? And when'd you end up going back to Germany? July. July of 2004. Yeah.

Got it. And how was the, what do they call it? They got a word for it, reintegration. How was the reintegration to the world? Quick, fast, in a hurry. You know, I came home. That's back. I mean, I won my DCU's home.

One, we still didn't have like the modern amenities. So we would wash our uniforms in JPA and like water. So I remember like walking to the airport one. I got all the stand invasions. I think dudes were buying me drinks, like steak dinners, waiting at the airport. Got all the attention stuff. When I came home, it was literally a hero's welcome. And this was coming home to Germany?

No. So come home to Germany. Yeah, yeah, sorry. one of a too far head coming home to germany it was it was fine like i was you talking about before going home on your leave yeah leave after that so coming back to germany it was quick um i was single i lived in the barracks so we just kind of got pushed away you know the married dudes had their whole thing i just remember like we walked into the gym and they said welcome home we did a whole speech and stuff then there's a reintegration process where you have to go through and talk to doctors and stuff

for like three days everybody was just whole place smelled like a brewing factory and just reaped of alcohol, everybody was drunk. I think everybody just wanted to check the boxes and get out of there. We did have to, everybody had a pee in a jug for like a gallon jug because we were shooting DU rounds. You'd put uranium rounds. So there was that.

And then we were at the, to wait the power plant where there was yellow cake, enriched uranium. So I tested for that. I think that's why my kids are so smart to this day. But, yeah. You know, the whole idea of like PTSD and stuff like that didn't really come up. Nobody wanted to admit that at time.

We had a bunch of replacements that were there. So they were just kind of blown away and looking up to us. And so nobody wanted to like admit that like, you know, it kind of might have sucked a little bit. Not as bad as I'm going to get later on. And then you went home to America on leave? Yeah. And that's when you were getting treated like a hero. Yeah.

30 days leave. Got married. So that was August, 2004 got married um went and got away for the time an ID card and you know went on a little small vacation able to do christmas with the family again got to see everybody uh went back to germany and then had her sit over and that was a turning point for me um i was a just got promoted a sergeant or i was about to be at the time so i was married so out of the barracks you got housing now um that was a

a shock or two because I was like, oh, I don't have a car on your furniture. So, you know, luckily the Army has a program where they got low new furniture. Mm-hmm. Just household army furniture. Did you get a car? Yeah. Yeah. I eventually got a...

Did you get a cool German car for cheap? It wasn't cool. It was an 85 volts where I can golf. Okay. It was a manual. And I had like rough spots in the while where you could see the ground. Okay. It was enough to get around base.

So it was cold, not cool. Yeah. one of the things I guess the way the German environmental stuff is if it's that bad and you want to junk it you have to pay to junk it

so you just sell it from soldier to soldier so I paid 500 bucks for it uh huh it got me around no because I was in Germany for a while and the guys would buy like nice cars like you know they'd take out a loan and buy a BMW or something

because it's way cheaper than buying a BMW or Mercedes in America yeah but you can't ship it back can you not No, they don't have American specs, some of the windshield and the seatbells or something. I don't know. But I didn't eventually work my way up. I got to, you know, after I was there for another year or so, I got to be in W.

See? Moved up in the world. Did it have floorboards in it? Yes. Yeah. And what's your job when you come back now? You're promoted. You're a sergeant.

I was a team later. So in between that, I was a Bradley driver for a little bit, too, because it's because I wanted to get off the ground. I wanted to learn the Bradley. So I drove that for a while. and then I got back on the ground. I was a team leader. I got promoted. And then I wanted to be a gunner on a Bradley.

So I asked my opportunity to start if I could be a gunner. He was like, sure. And I did that. So then I went from being on the ground to being in the mountain section. And I got really good at shooting the Bradley. And then I got promoted to be Capitol Lance's gunner. So I was his gunner, which was pretty cool. That was the lowest ranking.

I was company commander's gunner. I was still at E5. That's legit. But that was cool. And then you guys are now preparing for another deployment at this point. Yeah, that was a quick turnaround. So we got back. We got our replacements in.

A lot of the old guys left. And then we already knew as soon as we got back, like, we're deployed again in a year. And our mindset started changing a lot more, you know, because now I was married and now it's not just me anymore. And also, we just got back and we're going back again. And we have new guys to train up. So we got to train them up and get them ready. Yeah, by the way, you're coming back from about 15 months. See, I don't know if you know this, but the Marine Corps and the Navy, they do six months deployments for the most part.

Yeah. Like maybe it's seven. Yeah. Maybe it's eight. But it's like they're just on that cycle. And the reason they're on that cycle, it's all based on ships. Like ships go out for six months. Generally speaking, they used to do nine back in the day, but now they figured out that like six months is.

So the Navy and the Marine Corps is like six months. Yeah. We, you know, I'd always feel like, damn. dude these guys are doing 14 15 month deployments get some yeah and then you come home and you have a one year turnaround right and you know you're going back for yeah part of that one year was we did two graphingvere rotations which is the gunnery and then we did a graphenvere in holensfeld back-to-back rotation so you know the movement to contact lanes and all that stuff we were you know I joke about all the time I was in germany for five years I went to one october fest um so I'm we

hardly ever got to travel anywhere, hardly got to do stuff. It was a quick turnaround. Yeah, that is an interesting thing too because the Navy and the Marine Corps deployed regardless of what's going on in the world, whereas the Army doesn't really do that. Like the Army, you might be at home for a long time

if there's no war happening. Of course, we weren't predicting two decades of war after September 11th. So you just spend all the time on the road, you're all the time as training. You'd only get one October fest. You might as well not. even gone to Germany.

I mean, there was still, you know, there was still block leave in times and, you know, 40 weekends and we could get on a train and go to Paris, go to all over. We went to a lot of places that just wasn't, you know, non-war time, Germany living. And you got kids coming along the way at this point?

No kids yet. So now you're preparing for this deployment. How's that workup? Now that you've kind of been in combat before, you've been to Iraq before. How's that workup feel? A lot more. I wouldn't say stress, but a lot more awareness of what I'm doing.

Like now I got my own soldiers on responsible for and we're going to war. So like the whole, you know, now I have to be responsible for them, bring them back. So I put a lot of focus on training, a lot of focus on PT as much as I didn't like to. Still did it. So getting them ready to go was, you know, there was a lot to that. You like that leadership position? Yeah, very much. Yeah.

Pre-deployment leave? Do you guys get pre-deployment leave? No. No pre-deployment leave? No. Just back up and go? Yeah, pretty much. I think it was like a four-day weekend or something worked in there.

And then where did you? You guys didn't deploy? You guys didn't, do you deploy to Kuwait this time? Yeah. So we had to go to Kuwait and we were the ready reserve force. This was after Fallujah. So we got, yeah. So they were expecting something like that again to happen.

So we were in Kuwait waiting, which I can tell you was hell on earth, like literally. I don't, people were ready to go to war. which is something I was thinking about earlier. You know, I had young soldiers. And as much as we've been training, you know, doing CQB and houses with live rounds and stuff, like, they were good and they were excited. They just, they wanted war. And I remember thinking, like, be careful what you wish for. This is before we left.

But being in Kuwait, everything's brown. There's nothing to do. It's hot as shit. You're walking everywhere in the sand, wearing all your gear. And it's just miserable. I mean, Captain Lance on had us training every day. I mean, all the training. I think Colonel Dean mentioned in the other podcast where we were ready, but there was nothing to do.

And then, you know, we're getting paid. Part of me was like, you know, we're getting paid. We're not getting shot at. So just live life, you know, just do your job, whatever. And the soldiers just wanting to go. And I remember, I'm like, you don't really know yet. But I didn't, you know, I was compared off the first deployment. And you guys are training hard.

Do you guys get anybody injured while you're training? anything like that? Not from training. It got to be so crazy that we had one soldier kill himself in the port of body. We had a lot of fights. Like, a lot of people get in trouble, you know, mailing alcohol from home and doing stupid stuff. I can't remember any significant. We had a, I think it was Alpha 26 where they were at a Bradley range.

And somebody was like cycling up the ghost around and the Bradley, the 25 millimeter, the way you do it, you have to like feed it into the shoot and stuff and cycle it. and he accidentally fired off a 25-millimeter around and a sabah pedal hit a dude in the neck. But that was, that was, you know, just leading up to it. At what point do you find out that you guys are going to Ramadi? It's about five months in. It just happened quick.

Like, I know Colonel Dean, which I went part of that. I didn't know any of, we just hear rumors on the streets and stuff. But I know Captain Lance went up to Baghdad to, like, recon, some stuff. And they came back and they said, we're going. everybody and you know we're cut off from all the news we don't know what's going on so we just hear you know what everybody else is talking about and I was part of the ad von force so I was with because I was Captain Lance on Gunner so I went up with him like two weeks before the rest of the company got there which was crazy what was your assessment when you got on the ground there

quick fast and hard I mean ECP 3 happened like the second day we were there and that we were out on a right-seat ride with them and we just see you know the giant explosion like right in front of us and just tear off over there and we pull up the ECP three and set up a cord on the 240 gun now we got armored home vs thankfully um i just remember sitting there and as soon as we pull up captain lenzum i was trying to get out and there's three dudes running across the field um like pulling a cart or something and i yelled at him to get back to the truck and they just cut them down with a 240 and i ended up getting a ward for that and i was kind of think about I was telling my wife the other day, you know, it was like, you know, a kid or an award for, like,

cutting down three dudes with a machine gun. Like, cool, you know, it was awesome engagement, but looking back, like, uh. Yeah, that ECP3, so this attack happened. And this would happen when Americans would try and turn over control points to Iraqi forces. And when the, when the insurgents would see that, they would know that that was going to be a easier target for them. Yeah. And so they would oftentimes hit those, those ECPs really hard. Yeah.

Then that's what happened at ECP3. And I think that's the one where the oncoming mid team commander and the offgoing mid team commander were both killed, if I remember correctly. Um, yeah, I don't think everybody was killed at ECP3. That's what Starrant. Reinhart got hit and then Garza. That's when Colonel Dean was talking about like living in shit and showing up. Like the Iraqis or shit in a lot of them.

Yeah, there was one. I guess I must be confused because there was one, and it was during a turnover op, because the incoming mid-team commander and the outgoing mid-team commander, one of them was wounded, one of them was killed, or both of them were killed, but just it was such a terrible welcome aboard to the guys.

Now you guys are coming on board. And it's like, oh, man, welcome. Welcome to Ramada. And like you were saying, when we're changing out, like the enemy, they know different vehicles, different markings. So, you know, they see that, and they're going to exploit the weakness. What they didn't know is we had Bradley's on the way.

Like, they weren't there yet. But so when we showed up with Bradley, they changed a little bit. Yeah, there's a beautiful thing about Abrams and Brad's for sure. So how long is it, how long is your turnover with these guys? I think it was about a week. And you jumped in the left seat immediately and like we're going out. Yep. Yeah, there's another part in Ramadi declassified where Colonel Dean was talking about the fact that, okay, we got to get guys out into the AO.

Even if their guys are going to be on QRF, we got to get them out in the AO. They got to start doing patrols. And he sent out however many patrols it was, and every single one of them got hit in the entities. Yep. So Brett Trillell got killed within the first. So once the rest of our company got there, about two weeks after that, I think it was like the second mission we had. Brett Trouble got killed. My buddy, Tom Davis, lost his leg.

And then not even two days later, Lieutenant Love got killed and PFC Cromby, which Cromby was a brand new medic. I remember the kid, like, slept in a cot across me, and I maybe saw his face. I couldn't even remember his face today. But like that young, just like two days, like two days, like second patrol, just annihilated. I mean, the IEDs that they were hitting us with were crazy. Yeah, I got this book right here. It's actually his mom put it together.

It's called Love Nick, but it's just, it's a, it's a bunch of letters that he had written home. And, well, as you just pointed out, what's really heartbreaking about the book is like there's, I think, one letter from Romadi. Because the rest of it is letters where he's writing from Kuwait, from other areas and from just being the army. There's, there's a one, one letter. And actually there's a, there's, it's actually not even a letter. It's a cell phone message that his mom got. He said, hey, mom, this is Nick. I'm in Iraq right now, and it's pretty cool here.

I went on patrol the other day. I got to save someone's life. They got shot. He had gotten shot. He was an Iraqi guy. He got shot in the upper left abdomen. We had to fix him up while we were on patrol. It was pretty exciting.

I got to save someone's life with all my cool medical knowledge. The guy ended up living, but he had to get his spleen removed. It was exciting, as I mentioned. As a medic, I don't really have to do anything dangerous. I guess. The only dangerous thing I have to do so far is like I raided a store. We had to search it out real quickly for a bomb or anything suspicious. We pull over cars to look for an IED or something.

You know it's just exciting. Being over here is like being BPS Border Patrol or a state trooper. We kind of drive around all day trying to arrest bad guys. That's and that's what it's about here we're doing during these days. It's pretty safe. Everyone's trying to make their parents think that's safe. It's hot, dusty, and Sandy. and yeah, that's about it.

I'll try and call you some other time, but I don't know how often I'll get, how often that's going to be because it's hard to get, like, on a phone or a computer out here. It takes a little time and patience. So, yeah, I'll try and call you again in a bit. All right, bye.

The telephone message immediately after, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I love you, Mom. Bye. Thank you. Yeah. I know the book was out there. Yeah.

Like you were saying, though, it was a young, young soldier that just showed up there And then this other guy, Lieutenant Scott Love, who is, which it's interesting because when you hear Lieutenant, you know, you're here first Lieutenant, you think of a lot of like a young guy that's kind of inexperienced. But he was like a 30 plus year old guy. He was everybody loved the guy. And that's what you guys roll into. Yeah.

Yeah, I was a tenant Love's Gunner for a little bit. And he was super chill, dude. I mean, he was professional, but he was super chill. And he, Colonel Dean said he was invest in the mission. He was investing the mission. Like he spoke Arabic He he was about what we were doing Like he was about the hearts and minds

He was still tactical leader and stuff But he was invested in you know fixing Iraq and restored peace whatever And His death was bad I mean We were looking for stuff And stuff got blown a block away And that was not even two weeks in

That was A little eye opening for everybody How is it getting your gear back on and going back out? At the time, it was kind of crazy. I mean, we'd go on patrols and somebody to get killed. And as a squad leader, you've got to come back and, like, pack that kid's stuff up. And, like, you were just playing spades with him last night.

And now you're packing this stuff up and sent him to home. And that's, I think that's when it hit me. I was like, damn, you know, one of my good friend Tom just got blown up. And then we already lost two soldiers. And then that's when I wouldn't say the lights went off but are on, but you know, that's when I knew this was serious. Because the unit before, what was 2-28, I think? The unit before us, they took casualties, but I don't think they told us how many, it didn't really disseminate all the down to our level. So it was eye-opening for everybody.

But we'd go on it, we'd go right back out. Like when you started the podcast, that memorial ceremony, I remember they called us in from sector just so we go to the memorial service. and we went right back out. Like we parked our Humvees, took her gear off, Carrie's heartland, so I was a squad leader, so I had to carry them on the plane or the bird and spoke to cigarette, bullshitted for a little bit, and we were gone.

We went right back out until 7 of the morning. That's another weird thing that I never, like when I was watching war movies and stuff as a kid, it's like your base was way over here and then you'd go on helicopters to some other place where you'd go fight and then you'd get done fighting, you'd go back to, but I was like, no, you guys were out into Meme.

Like you go outside the gate, take a right, you're there. Yeah. It's like going to the grocery store. Like it's not like, okay, hey, I'm going to go to this memorial service and then I'm going to go get in a vehicle and we're going to drive and then we're going to fly somewhere and it's going to take an hour or two hours or three hours. It's like, no, I'm, when I get my vehicle and go out the front gate, 30 seconds later, yeah.

You're into Meme. Yeah. I think they got us a predator drown to like overwatch our area while we came in. And we were probably back on base for like an hour if that, you know, between getting on, getting back off and right back out. You talk about vengeance and stuff like that. It was on everybody's mind. And to me was like a, it's like a, what is it, grid layout, you know?

So the roads are kind of like western, you know, you're just like driving down a road, look left, look right. It's very, it seems like the layout is very western. And there's normal looking building. you know, they're like, okay, this seems this seems relatively normal, but it's anything but normal. Yeah.

And then what was your, what was your opt tempo like? Like how often were you going out? How often did you come back? Every day. Every day you're going out. Every day. It was eight-hour patrols.

I started out, you know, first aren't shall, I'd rotate us, so I was on daytime patrols, which mornings is not bad. Afternoon patrols suck. It's super hot and everybody's tired, but we would go out

and eight-hour patrols. You're probably going to get in contact of some kind. Were you in a Brad? No, I was in, I was in Humvee, and then we were walking. We just stopped taking Humvees for one. We kept getting blown up. I mean, we went through 16 Humvees in like less than two months. Then we started walking because we were safer that way.

I think everybody felt that way. I know I hated being in Hummers and I hated being in Bradley's. Like, for me being in Bradley because I'm not an armor guy. I mean, I was in the SEAL team. So being in a vehicle is already a stretch, but put me in the back of a Bradley where it's like, I have no idea where we are. It's harder than hell.

And you're just waiting to get blown up. Is what it felt like. The first time I got blown up in our Bradley, just dust everywhere, loudest. You can't hear anything. Just nobody can understand what's going on. You just got rocked. How early was that for you in deployment?

Well, like a week. What were you doing in the Brad? They would drive us out to the end of the sector and we just walk. Like we would walk. You said like a grid system. We just walked down the street. And we were slowly pushing our way into the city and making our presence known.

But what we didn't know is, you know, the moog, they were coming behind us and intimidating the local population and watching us and filming us. Like, I know we sit y'all some intel stuff like video cameras we capture it and stuff. And they were just watching us. They were planning and just waiting. But as far as up tempo, like we'd go on a patrol. So wait a second. So you got blown up. That was your first time getting blown up in a Brad?

Yeah. Anyone get wounded? No. Yeah. Yeah. Also, that's early on the Brad's because they got. bigger and bigger IEDs as time went on. So they probably had a,

they probably had a, an IED meant for a Humvee, but they hit a Brad. Yeah. Didn't get anyone. And it would just, I remember Brad just like, it hit us and just blew right through. So I think we stopped and called EOD

so they could do a post-blast analysis or something. I don't know if we did that. We were just everybody, the adrenaline was kicking so much. But we go on patrol and come back and you think you got eight hours to, you know, recoup. But when we come off, patrol or media on QRF for another eight hours and then you get your eight hours to prep for the

next patrol so we would be off sometimes you get an hour sometimes you get two hours but just be laying there on your on your caught whatever and hearing explosion or you don't have to say anything just get your gear on we're going back out and we had our own QRF we had to respond to our own guys so yeah before we hit record today I was well I guess I was essentially thanking you guys because we didn't have our own QRF we didn't have enough people to QRF ourselves so our QRF was always an army or Marine Corps It was always you guys coming to help us when we got into trouble. And so when you did those explosions or you hear those big gun fights happen or you hear casualties happening, you guys would know it would be you coming to get us.

Yeah. I know you remember Charlie Medd, you know, they would put out announcements over the intercom. You know, we need a positive blood. And everybody, whatever it was, it didn't matter who it was. Sometimes I donated blood to, you know, an Iraqi fighter. I didn't know that time, but you just, you go to give blood. And it was blood to blood transfusion. And you just, that happened every day.

Yeah. They just come across the loudspeakers. Yeah, they'd have the mash casualty calls for blood. Yeah. We'd send guys up too. Yeah. So your opt tempo is eight hours on, eight hours QRF, eight hours prep for the next mission. Yeah.

Somewhere, at no time did I say sleep. At no time did I say PT, at no time did I say relax and call home? No. No, that was no. We didn't do PT. I mean, PT was every day, but, you know, in the winter months, I think it would slow down a little bit, but not really much. Usually after we'd go out on a QRF mission, you have a little couple hours of downtime,

but you're just prepping for the next patrol. With a child, if you're lucky. Luckily, we had good cooks. They were always there for us. I didn't have one situation where I just got off a patrol, and we are nasty. I'm covered in dirt, blood and sweat, and I had a major that was standing at the door, so we couldn't come in like that. like, bro, we're going back out in like 30 minutes.

Like, you're going to let my guys eat. I got into it with a major. I know, I think I'd call Captain K, Lanceong or Captain Graham at the time. And I was like, this is what's going on? He was like, I got it. Yeah. Took care of that, but. Yeah, they were generally pretty friendly to the guys that were out

and just getting after it. That's, uh, that's kind of the vibe that I got because, you know, I had one of my CB guys who, we had a, we got a, we got a big water tank blown up. up and he went out and like within 24 hours actually he was probably within 12 hours he had this new water tank you know it got like I don't it was probably like a thousand gallon water tank he got it back and got a new one and blah blah blah and I was like I was like hey chief really appreciate you getting that thing done he goes hey sir as long as I just don't want no more boom boom in the camp yeah that's it cool I didn't even know what a CB was until we were there and um they

helped us out a lot I mean they would come in and build bunks for us and stuff and we started I just sleeping on cots, and all of a sudden they were building those, like, bunk beds and stuff, and hooking up AC units, and definitely shout out to those guys. So as this is all going on, do you have, how much, how much of your thought process is about, like, hey, what progress are we making? What's the overall plan here? Were you getting briefed on that stuff? Were you more thinking day to day, this is what we're doing?

It was day to day. I mean, we had target practice every night at that point. I didn't think we were making any progress. It didn't seem like we were. Definitely didn't seem like we were. if anything the enemy was getting smarter genius tactics I gotta give them credit for that

what were some of the things that impressed you so their pressure plate the way they detonated the pressure plates you know there would be a house in the courtyard and there'd be a street tiny little canal road and there'd be a garden on the other side we found one where they had a garden hose they had somehow got the positive negative wire

through the hose and we drove over and that triggered the IED or where they would take the side of the sidewalk out and they would encamp a 1-55 round and like styrofoam and paint it to look like the sidewalk and put it back or just simple things like they'd send a just cardboard just laying in the street positive and negative wire we just run over that debt date it and then when we got the the red and blue system the jamming systems they figured out that we could because they were using cell phones or the two-way radios to detonate

them they figured out we were jamming them so they would have kids out in the street remote control cars and they would try to see which vehicle had the jammer's on the on it. And I mean, gotta give them credit for that. I mean, they're smart. Yeah, one of the things that impressed me was they would burn a tire in the street. That would melt the tar. And so one person would burn a tire. And then someone else would go and dig the tar out. And then someone else would go dig a hole. Yeah. And then someone else would put a bomb in the hole. And then someone else would fill the hole back in. And then someone else would put the tar back. And then once they put the tar back on, this is what impressed me was it was like

they would then put dust on it and sweep it and then unsweep it and so it just you wouldn't be able to see it it just look like the freaking road yeah because it's not like the roads are there beautiful pavement anyways but it would just the effort that they would go through over time to make this happen and do it in a clandestine way where it's like oh they are this is their neighborhood yeah there's trash and debris everywhere I don't know the finance seer the IEDs though like I don't know where we got the intel front we knew it was him we had a rest of it. does do three times and every time he gets out we didn't have anything to keep him locked up for a while and one of our lieutenants got the idea you know we're gonna use the propaganda against them so

we snatched them up and we would take them to a corner to me and get out take pictures of them you know with the cell phone you know with americans and take him to the other corner and do that take pictures the next day we found him hands of feet tied up behind his back foreheads split open and they had sewn a one-fif five round in his back. We were like, yeah, that's him, but also there's wires coming out of his back. Savages. Absolute savages. As time is going on day to day, what's your mentality?

You know, at first, you're in Kuwait. You're fired up like, what to make this happen? We want to go to war. You get there. Your guys are taking casualties out of the gate. You're losing guys out of the gate. Does it become at some point, I always feel like things just become kind of a blur of just,

like it was interesting when I had, I know you said you mentioned, you listened to the podcast with General McFarland. It wasn't until I did that podcast that I realized the timeline. In my mind, it was all these kind of separate events that had happened. It seemed in my mind weeks, if not months apart,

but they were literally two, three days apart. But every operation was so massive and so much moving parts that it seemed like this one single, and then another singular event. But in reality, it's like, no, we were just, oh, that was three days later. That was two days later.

Yeah. Did you get into like a blur mindset? What was going on in your head? Absolutely. So, you know, like they all ran together. You know, we'd have some high profile missions, but we'd just get, you know, one night, like Tuesday night, we'd go go get this guy. And those were cool, but then there was always something that popped off with those things.

That would, you know, that's how you remember it. Like so and so, so got shot, so and so got blown up. That's how you remember it. And it wasn't until. So, let's see, about three or four years ago, I was listening to Joe Rogan's podcast, and you talk about sensor deprivation tanks, and there had one opened up in Columbus, Georgia, and I went and did that. And it was like my second or third time, and I just remember laying there, and, like, stuff just pops up.

Like, missions that pop up are, like, certain memories that I didn't, they're just buried in the back of my head. I think that's where a lot of PTSD stems from that people don't realize. Yeah. Yeah. You can't talk about stuff if it all blurs together. You know, I used to joke that everything we did was, legit and legal, but we were always under investigation. And they sent in a, you know, Army C.

idea, whatever comes down to investigate us. I'd be like, which mission? You know, like, which one are you talking about? And it was hard, you know, to remember. Like, we did this last night. We did this night before, you know. So. Yeah, that, there's no doubt of the, the amount of scrutiny we were all under in

terms of like rules of engagement and, you know, collateral damage. Like, there was investigations. We, I mean, my guys had to, had to, had to, sign a sworn shooter statement after every operation, every they killed. I don't know if you guys had to do that. Absolutely. And at the time, you know, my guys were like, oh, what's this for it? And I said, hey, listen, in the future, someone's going to dig into this and be like, well, why did you kill this guy? Here's why we killed this guy. Here's what was seen. Here's why the shot was taken.

And so it was a good move. Yeah. But at the time, it feels like, you know, it feels like unwanted scrutiny. It feels like you're getting it from both ends. But one of the best things I learned from the, from the first of the 506 over on the other side. at Craigador was like the attitude of like come investigate like if you think something is wrong please come down here investigate and I said that over and over again oh you think something's going on please come and investigate you know send people down here we'll take them out you want to go see what's like come with us come on come and get it like you want to see what's going on here you want to say why people are getting shot why why the enemy is getting shot why our kill counts so high

come and come down here bring a notebook yeah and bring some body armor because that's that ever happened You know, and that's another cool thing that you just talked about was, you know, when people talk about, when they think of like special operations missions, they think of like, oh, we get this target and we go out and hit this target. Well, it didn't take us long to figure out in Ramadi that if we've got a target, because we had great, our, my intel shop, my guys were freaking awesome and they worked in close conjunction, but we had really good forms of intelligence. I'll leave it at that. and we would get targets all the time. And that didn't take me very long to realize, well, I could get my guys, spin them up, put them in Humvees, drive them out in the town,

have them dismount, have them go hit a target. By the way, with Iraqi soldiers, you know, come back and that's what they'd be doing for the next 12 hours. Or I could call you guys. You'll be like, hey, there's a guy in building 18 alpha. You guys, cool. We'll call you in 20 minutes. We literally, they call us like,

Like your, you know, platoon commanders or company commanders or call something like, hey, we got the guy. Yeah, cool. Send him our detainment facility. We'll be there and we'll do the interrogations. Because you guys were out in the streets and you were out in the neighborhood so much.

And we had, obviously, we had 38, 137, the 506. So in the downtown area, it was like totally covered by U.S. military. And you guys knew the neighborhoods and knew the buildings so well. You probably knew the guy that, you probably be like, oh, yeah, we already talked to that guy.

We talked to him yesterday. We'll go talk to him again. We'll go grab him. So the cooperation that we had with you guys was, it was awesome. Yeah. And, you know, occasionally we'd be like, oh, yeah, there's this guy or there's this particular thread or something like that. And so we'd roll out. I think, but we only did, like, we probably only did, like, 35 or 40 actual direct action missions where we went out and hit a target.

Most of the time, we just call you guys up. When I say you guys, I mean, we'd call up you guys, whatever battalion owned the battle. And you guys would just get it done in like 12 minutes. You're like, yeah, we're all right, we're there. I had conversations like, you're in the building right now? They're like, yeah. Okay, cool. Let me get my intel guys and get the name for you because you guys

have hit the target so fast. And that was the idea of the permanent presence inside these neighborhoods was that you guys were just always there. Yeah. Yeah, I got to the point where we were doing so many, you know, raids like that that before we started doing the SKTs, you know, the small kill teams that, instead of doing like a heart entry, you know, where you blast the door, through flashpoint

and stuff, we would try to sneak in. I got videos that we would like, we snuck in someone's house and one of our dudes jumped in the bed with them because we were that quiet. You know, are we like step over people to like clear the rest of the house and then wake them up and then zip stripping and stuff. But like we got surgical with it. Yeah, that was a definite change. Same thing for us, you know, this idea of breaching the front door, which always seems

exciting and it always seems. And there are some tactical advantages to it. but the tackle advantage of sneaking into the building and just getting full control before you wake anybody up that doesn't get it there's not much more advantages you can get in that that mission right there so as these things blur together in your head are you start are you feeling any combat fatigue are you feeling you know uh the odds starting to click up you know i feel like you know we're playing a little bit of russian roulette here and you start rolling the dice every day and you're rolling the dice every eight hours right every hour every hour or rolling the dice, were you thinking about that or were you disconnected to the point where it's like, this is your job, this is what you're doing? I think it was about a month then where I've made the conscious decision, you know, it's going to happen.

You know, we've already lost so many guys. We're taking so many hits that my time's my time. Hopefully it's quick, you know, hopefully, you know, sniper around or an IED or something catastrophic. Hopefully I don't like lose legs or something bad. Like I just accepted it. And between that, you just live off adrenaline, nicotine and hate, I guess.

I think we just made a t-shirt as Charles adrenaline, nicotine, and hate that's a long that's a long stretch of time in your brain the casualties keep coming for you guys

I know on you guys lost Staff Sergeant Swanson as well that's what July I think and again all you can do is go to the memorial service go to the angel flight

get your gear back on and go back out over and over again I know you mentioned that you remember a little bit about setting security for Colonel Dean to go meet with some shakes and not realizing at the time

what a huge impact that those meetings were going to have on the war yeah I don't know how I got attached to his PSD. I think Captain Lansom was out with him or something. I was just part of the whole convoy. But I remember sitting outside his compound. And, you know, we were obviously outer security.

So we'd sit with him and some of his guys would come up and bullshit with us. And Chevy Aztec, nickel-plated AK, like just hanging out with him. That's another T-shirt, dude. A Chevy. Yeah, I got pictures. Pontiac Aztec. I got a picture just like sitting. Let's go.

Sitting next to the dude, it was a shorty too. It wasn't even like a full size. It was bad. But just like hanging out with these guys. And I was like, I didn't know what we were doing at the time. You know, that's above my pay grade. So I know we're just there. And yeah, at the time I had no idea what we were doing.

I thought we were just talking to like the mayor or something. But lo and behold, you know, we're changing stuff. Yeah, that was the beginning of the Alon Bar Awakening. Did you get any leave during one year in Ramadi? Did you go home on leave at home? I took my midter leave right before we went to Ramadi when we were still in Kuwait, which I'm very fortunate was the way it happened because I couldn't imagine, you know, leaving Ramadi and coming back, you know, I don't, it's hard to turn your brain off from that,

one. It just to go back and like, you know, be back in civilian world or whatever and then have to go back into that shit. So I'm glad I was fortunate enough to, you know, do it before we went up to Romani, but a lot of guys weren't, you know. Colonel Dean said he went in the middle of deployment. I just can't. It's hard to turn your brain off or something like that. Yeah, I definitely, like I said, we do shorter deployments.

And so I haven't been in the position of going home and then having to come back to it. But I'll tell you, that seems like it would be very, very difficult to do. Very, very difficult to like, oh, I'm about to get killed, go home, be in total peace. and harmony with your family and then know that as soon as you get home, okay, I got two weeks and then be right back in the shit again. Yeah. You know, measured up like America sniper, you know,

and Chris Colle comes home and he's watching stuff on the news, you know, something like that. Like you see it, you know what's going on. You know more than anybody else does. And at that, you know you got to go back too. So I'm just glad that wasn't a situation. Did you see the movie Warfare? Yeah, yeah, I was going to bring that up.

Yeah. Well, one thing that's interesting about that is I was talking to Colonel McFarland about it. And he was, he was home on leave. Really? Yep. Because he asked me, he was like, hey, what, when did this happen? Like, I'm trying to remember if this was this or this was that. And I said, no, this was November 19th.

And he goes, oh, it's home on leave. And, you know, he sings praises of his, his subordinate leadership. Because when he was home on leave, like, they did some of the really successful operations. And he's really proud of that because he wasn't even there to, yeah, to take part in him. But yeah. So you did see warfare? Yeah, by far the best, you know, war depiction of what we went through I've ever seen. And I watched it with my wife.

And then eventually I watched it with my 17-year-old son. I want to make sure, one, I watched it first by myself. So it's just kind of getting the reaction. I didn't go to the theater. So I bought it off Amazon. Then I watched it a little wife. And you can't really explain to your spouses what you went through. You can't really like, you know, we got shot at.

We got blown up. But until you see something like that, like that was by far the best. depiction of what we went through. Yeah. Um, hands down. I went and saw it in the theater. It is,

I went with my wife as well and it was interesting. I sat down to watch it and all of a sudden I hear a, Hey, jaco and I look over and it's another guy from tasking a cruise. When he's with his wife. I'm like, what's up, brother?

Then we sat there and watched it and then it was over and the theater emptied out and we're sitting there like, okay. Um, I think and I haven't really directly asked my wife. I mean, my wife was kind of like, uh, I mean,

obviously she thought it was really moving movie but I haven't really asked her like what she thought it seemed like from her perspective like I like I would like to say like did it seem crazy it seemed like there was like some lot of mayhem going on I think obviously it was like that so she'd be like absolutely but we haven't really had that deep conversation about it and the other interesting thing is like she knows Elliot um and so there's like another connection there So I don't know. I'll have to ask her about that. Yeah.

Probably. The dude that made it. Yeah. Yeah. And the guy that made it just, you know, well, he was there. Yeah. Yeah. So you watched it three times because I've only seen it once.

Yeah. How was it the second time? How was it the third time? I mean, what is bad. That's the same comment my son made. When we finished watching, he said, so you watch it three times now? Yeah. But I had to watch it by myself first.

just because I make sure, you know, one I was going to do to me. I don't know if that was a good idea or a bad idea, but it was fine. And then it made sure there was no distractions and watching my wife and went through that. Yeah, I told those guys, because I had Nick, or sorry, Elliot and Joe on the podcast.

The two guys that got wounded, they came on the podcast and then, like, telling them, you know, what it was like leaving Ramadi and knowing what those guys were getting into. And you know how it is, man. Like, it's kind of like you said when you turned over the 228.

The 228, they probably told all your leadership, like, hey, it's really freaking bad out there. And, of course, leadership's like, yeah, it's not that bad. Like, we're gonna go to. It's like, the guys from Team 5, like, same thing. Like, we're like, hey, I remember telling them, and I said this on the podcast, like, you guys are going to take casualties.

And no one ever thinks you're going to take casualties, you know? And certainly no one ever thinks they're going to be the casualty, right? It always happens to someone else. But that is a good. some of the images that they put in with the guys walking around, the moge walking around and walking in and out of buildings

and looking and not looking and talking on radios and not talking on radios and snipers are like, wait a second, what are you seeing? Well, I got something here and I got movement, we got building with, and you're hearing the radio reports. It's like all that stuff is very Ramada-ish.

Yeah, yeah. Like, can you shoot a guy holding a cell phone and looking at your position? You could probably get away with it, but at that time, You can't. I mean, he's not doing anything. He might just be calling home, but you know what he's doing.

Deep down inside, you know what he's doing. Yeah. You know, the guy had a, I shot our dude at the university right before we did that big mission. Like we were doing Overwatch, just seeing what they're doing, just looking at dudes. And there was two dudes with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. And I was like, you know, that gut feeling. I was like, hey, ain't no reason to be digging right there. Where he was digging.

I ended up shooting him and lo and behold, he had debt court. and you had a pickaxe and they were putting something in so they weren't doing freaking road construction in 2006 that's the same thing with like people with binoes it's like you're not bird watching and and and by the way someone with the radio because the cell phone towers were actually down yeah and sometimes people get reported as they were talking on a cell phone and you could say it'd look like they're talking to cell phone but they're talking on a radio right but uh even those guys it's like um they're coordinating an attack and it's really as soon as you're as you see maneuvering taking place and now you got a guy on the radio. Okay, well, this guy is

no longer talking to his grandma. Yeah. This guy is coordinating an attack on coalition forces and he's going to get killed. That's what's happening. The other thing, uh, we did mosque monitors a lot, which I thought was kind of dumb at first, but then like looking back and, you know, they're called a prayer. They give like the whole sermon over the mosque. So they literally called everybody in for the jihad. Yeah. And they're like, bring them in. And did you guys have interpreters with us? Yeah. with you. Yeah, we would have actual Mosque Warner missions. We'd go out and we'd just park somewhere and wait for, you know, call a prayer and listen.

And the tour would be like, this ain't good. Yep. That's it. Like we had, we both Iraqi soldiers and interpreters, like American or coalition interpreters. Yeah, same thing. You'd be like, uh, this isn't going to go. They're coming right now. Because they're straight up saying, hey, it is time for jihad.

Yeah. That's like what they are saying. The time for jihad is now. Part of the region. And assemble at this area. Right. Like, assemble at the soccer stadium. Assemble here.

Like, that's what they're straight up doing. I don't know if they knew we were listening to them or they just didn't give a shit, but I mean, that's part of their religion. So as time is progressing, did you feel like your awareness or your combat? Like how good did you feel like you and your team were getting? More confident as we were going. Luckily, I didn't have any serious injuries or casualties in my squad at the time. I know, everybody had their own nickname for their squad or whatever. I don't care of what ours was, but, yeah, we were just getting good.

I know you talked Colonel Dean about scooping up that e-mom. That was my squad. Like, we were setting up for an SKT. That's one of the house we actually snuck into. And we got, we caught the dudes jumping the wall. And one of my soldiers, like, grabbed him because the mosque was right there behind the house. And we grabbed him. We're like, where are you going?

What are you doing? I got a little suspect. He's like, oh, I made him a mom. I mean, I was like, I don't know. E-moms don't jump walls. He can use the door. E-bombs don't rerun it. But so we scooped him up.

And at the time, I had no idea the impact that would have. So we got him and caught him up. And I remember some black SUV showed up and took him away. And how did you feel like your guys were handling it, like on your team? Oh, they were getting their own confidence. You know, we'd go ahead of target package. Or we'd do SKTs. You know, small kill teams we'd set up.

We'd walk in, and Bradley Straples off went into town. We'd walk in. We'd take a building, or sometimes we would go into one building, and then we'd use the rooftops and go a couple of downs so they couldn't, like, target us. And we'd set up, and we'd catch them putting the IEDs in, and we'd smoke them. And that would just build confidence. Like, we felt like we were protecting our dudes that were going out the next morning. That's exactly what we were doing, but we were getting good at it, too.

Yeah. Damn to me was a freaking IED. It really was. Those IEDs were massive too, like massive. Yeah. Like, especially what was horrific was when they started building IEDs to use against Bradley's and tanks. The shape charges. But then they would hit Humvees with them.

Yeah. And it would just be like total devastation. I mean, for a mind-resistant cougar to get cut in half, I mean, that's, you know, they would take one of the manhole cover that Colonel Dean talked about. And then, you know, copper plates. It would just make an EMP or EFP. EFP, yeah. And then they'd accelerate it.

And it is... Yeah, that's another thing I've always kind of talked about is the damn vehicle graveyard. When you're driving out the main gate and you're driving by 75 or 100 freaking vehicles that are just twisted wreckage. And you're like, wait a second. All those vehicles right there come from the city that I'm driving out through right now. We took 14 Bradley's through Ramadi didn't bring any back. Bradley's. I mean, we went through two fleets of home vs.

I mean, they would just get annihilated. And up armored home vs, Bradley. Like, to take a Bradley out, that's serious. You know what? What was it Bradley way? 33 tons, I think. I don't know how much do that, but I'm pretty sure that's it. That's insane.

And they took out nine, I think it was nine Abrams. Yeah. Yeah. Which is almost 70 tons. And I think it's like six edges of armor on the bottom of Bradley. and specialist Schaefer when he was killed he was a driver and the ID that hit underneath this driver's seat and actually forced him up like that's what killed him the impact but like the amount of explosives it takes for that we had one brother they got flipped over on its side and the barrel just happened to be

pointing to the side I got flipped over the barrel I got a picture the barrel is buried in concrete like in the cement like up to six inches it's like laying on its side barrel holding it up so that's a lot of explosives. You guys lose Schaefer on September 13th and then and then Lizarin, which we started this thing off on September 26th. And that was pretty close to you guys going home. Yeah. Yeah.

When did you actually head home? November, I believe. Okay. 2006 or seven. How are you guys doing at the end coming towards the end of deployment? We didn't stop. Cop dealer was the last thing that we did. and my squad happened to be the squad that got left there.

And we didn't have any Bradley's left. So it was time for us to, like, rip out. And my squad walked from cop dealer all the way back to the front gate because nobody can pick us up. Like, we didn't stop. Our opt tempo was literally up to the day we left. And cop dealer was by the university, right? Yeah.

I mean, a couple kilometers, like three or four kilometers. But. Did you skirt the city? No, we walked down in the middle of the street. I think we all just said, fuck it. Like, sorry, excuse me. Do I want to walk four clicks through a little bit safer? We're going straight through to me.

I think we were just trying to catch with our pants down, maybe, I guess. Just walk through and, you know, let's see what we could. It was getting one more fight or one more thing that we're going on. They didn't know we were leaving. So also nobody replaces the cop dealer that I recall that we just left. They just told us to pack it up and come home. And just walk back down. streets. So you guys pack up. Did you know when your last mission was? Yeah, that was it.

That was it. Yeah. We were doing the right, left seat, right seat ride with the other unit. It was first ID, which I rod because you know, I went to after that. And I was like, you can't get the break. But I know, ripping out with them and they had, you know, static position. So we weren't like alone to me. You know, we had stackers. We had checking in with them and stuff. Yeah, I think they told us, y'all come in, that's it. That's it. Yeah, I think two days later, we were out of there. And then it's back to Germany.

Yeah. And how are you doing when you're heading, when you get back to Germany? Um, numb, I guess, the best way to describe it. It's hard. Like, I know when I got blown up, they had a thing where they were calling the wives. I was like, why are we doing this? Like, we don't need to do that. Like, if we're not serious, they're going to call, but they would call the wives for

any incident like that. Did they keep that up for the whole deployment? Oh, no, they didn't start to like the last three or four months. Oh, okay. So I was like, I'm going to get ahead of this. I called my wife at the time, and I was like, I got blown up, but both my airdrums are ruptures,

and I couldn't hear shit, so I'm yelling. You know, I got blown up. She's like, what? I don't know if you can hear me not, but I can't hear myself. I got blown up, just in case somebody calls you, let you know, like, I'm okay, whatever, okay, you know, told her what okay is.

So I felt, I felt like at the time that would be better to hear from me, then like somebody calling and say, hey, John Jackson got blown up. But, so, coming back to Germany, it was, it was even wilder than it was the first appointment. Like, dudes, I remember going and checking my guys the first night, like driving from housing,

going to the barracks and pulling up on the barracks and there's, you know, a three-story beer ball with a garden hose. Just, I mean, you ain't drinking a year and now I would get out of pouring liquor and beer or whatever into just trying to, I feel like dudes were just numbing themselves even more. And just same thing, reintegration was like three or four days. And everybody just checking the box.

Checking the box. Would you go into reintegration like for the, is it like a psych eval that they're doing? It's a whole bunch of different stations. I think it was like the gym and they had it all like sectioned off and you go to like, go to audio to the hearing tests. You go to TBI, which it wasn't really a thing back then. So they were kind of figuring out. you just go to general mad and you know you all the different states whatever they were i can't

remember what they were but you had just well you walked around this checklist and you had to get it signed off so the quicker you get done with that the quick yeah get back to the three-foot beer bomb yeah oh three-story three-story yeah they were on the three-story they had a garden hose a garden hose oh man and dudes are going downtown i don't know why they lock us down the base but Dude's going downtown. Bombholder's a tiny community. Like when we left, the community fall apart because there was no income. So when we got back, dudes were just wild.

I don't know if the Germans were ready for that or not. But getting in fights, just trash and stuff. I mean. And how are you doing at this point? I mean, I was at home at the time with my wife. So, I mean. Are you sleeping all right? I don't remember.

I know I was drinking a lot. Just getting after the German beer. Yeah. It's just, I don't, yeah, that was all a day. I mean, just waiting to go home because everybody went home. I think it wasn't even two weeks before we all got like block leave. So everybody's just trying to get through the process and get home. And then where'd you go and leave?

I went back home to Gwinnett County, Georgia, Snellville area. And then I went up to my family's house in High Walsy, North Georgia. And we just, you know, we tried to cover everything, trying to see everybody at the same time. which cramming it all in you know it's i don't know if that was the best idea but you got to see everybody you know one we've been in germany for so long and coming home and just got out of war and got to see everybody so it was non-stop and going everywhere doing everything i think that was kind of a good thing because it can be distracted yes yeah i imagine it could be good in that way. Yeah. And how it's interesting because you did that first deployment where it was relatively

mellow. Yeah. And you know, you got this big hero's welcome and everything. And now you come back from this deployment where it was anything but mellow. But my family didn't know any of that. Yeah. They didn't know anything that we went through. And didn't tell them. So it's kind of faking the funk as you go through and just kind of acting like everything's fine and smile on your face and carry on. Yeah. pretty much. What was the next, what was your next assignment? So we came back and then a huge chunk of our, our company was all getting orders to leave at the same time.

And weren't you going to go be a drill sergeant or something back? Well, first I was, I was going to go to third ID in Savannah, Fort Stewart. Okay. So, you know, we were looking forward to that. One part of the leave was I'd knocked my ex-wife up at the time. So we had it. We were pregnant. So we were going back to the States.

And we're going to have a baby. looking forward to that, which we did actually try for. So we decided we wanted to wait until we got back in the States. So we did that. The night we left was a little rough on her. All the guys of the hotel together got trash and stuff.

I don't know how I made it back. So I was supposed to go to Fort Stewart, Georgia. So it was going to be like getting stationed by your home? Yeah, or at least. And that's where she's, that's where she was from as well? Yeah. Yeah. So we would be like three hours from home.

Yeah, which is a hell of a lot closer than Germany. Yeah, yeah. So, but two or three days before we were supposed to fly, like, all our household goods are gone. We got nothing. Like, we're back to the Army front for what we started. Three days before, like, I'm checking my mill perth, my Army email and stuff, and my orders got changed to Forehead, Texas. We're staying up a new light of a tree unit, first ID, two of a tree. I was like, oh, that's a jicking of nuts right there.

So I guess we're going to Texas. So our household goods, we're on a big. boat already, like on the way to Georgia. And we had to get to Texas. And I, you know, I decided we're not going to live on post. We're going to live off post. So I had to rent a house. It's my first time doing that.

We did have furniture and all that stuff at that time. Didn't have to get the Army issue. No. Grandfather clock and all the stuff. And we got set up in Texas. And my oldest son was born in October. That was crazy. It was literally a brand new unit.

They disbanded 2-2 infantry and then restarted at Fort Hood. And I was one of the first NCOs to get there. So out of all of us that left, they just spread us across a new battalion. So I was like the only NCO and Charlie Company, 2-2 Infantry for like three or four months. And I got brand new privates, like out of base training. I was like, I don't know what to do with y'all. Really nobody's telling me what to do. I don't know what to do.

So we just did PT and we'd hang around for a little bit and do some training and to them home. And finally we got a first sergeant. Appreciate you holding it down. Here's what's going. Then, you know, you start to filling up and stuff. And they're like, we're going to Afghanistan and 11 months. I was like, Jesus Christ, I can catch a break. And then, yeah.

I was like, Afghanistan, that's a different ballgame. So about three months before we were supposed to go to Afghanistan, I came to. on drill sergeant orders. So you did like a workup with these guys. Yeah, we did everything. Yeah. I had my own squad. I was a platoon leader for a little,

a platoon sergeant for a little while. I had a whole platoon. We were ready to go Afghanistan. How'd you like being in those leadership positions? Bob, I love it. I mean, I liked it. And are you at this point thinking you're going to be the Army for 20 years, 30 years, whatever?

Yeah, I was planning. This is your deal. Actually, I adjust on the in-depth re-enlistment. What's that? where you just the rest of my time. So I was in like eight years. And I was like 12 more years? Yeah, 12 more years.

You get a bonus for that? Yeah. It was like 15 grand. Yeah. Well, the way the Army does it, they don't get it all at once. And it gets taxed like 15 times. The Navy does the same thing.

Yeah. You get. It looks good on paper. Yeah, right. Sounds good when they're signing it too. Yeah, because if you think, because, well, the way the Navy did it was they would, you'd get half of it now.

Yeah. But then the rest of it would be divided over the rest of your time. So you tax every time. Five five, yeah, it got taxed. So you probably got like four grand in your pocket. I know some of my SF buddies would have like they would get deployed to a combat zone just so it would get at all taxed free of. Yeah. It must be nice.

But yeah, like I was prepared to go like mentally. One, I had a son at the time. So I was mentally preparing myself to go to Afghanistan. And then I came out and drill start orders. And I was relieved. I was embarrassed. And then I was like, I don't, torn. Like.

So do they how do you get selected for drill sergeant? It's the top 1% of your MOS. I don't know. I guess they just look through files and trying to find somebody like spots to fill. So is it considered like a good thing when you get selected for drill sergeant? Okay, because I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It's really good for your career.

Guarantee to get promoted when you get done. If not, why you're there. and so I was looking at that aspect like I just relitignt in death going on the trail trail to be a drill sergeant do that and I'll have deploy so I was like I'll be safe for at least two years God because they've been you've been you've been earning your share I was like at least I get two years off you know even if I'm working 18 20 hour days six days a week coming home every night yeah yeah yeah Exactly. But at the same time, you've also got the hold on, these guys that I've just trained. And now I'm going to leave them. And my worst fear has actually happened.

They were in Afghanistan. I just graduated at Drus Art School. I was on the 50-cow range, yelling at some privates. And I got a call from my ex-wife saying that my squad got hit. Two of my soldiers got killed from a suicide bomber, the lady that just walked up to the market. And the squad leader replaced me and got blown up and lost his arm. And we were best friends. So I was like, that was rough.

You know, one of my favorite soldiers, really good friends, Josh Rath, he was killed. And then another really good soldier one, Keith Estuary got killed. Like the two closest ones to me are the ones that got killed. My middle name son's named after Josh for that reason. But that really messed me. up, I think, like, Survivor's guilt, I guess, because I couldn't be there for him. I should have been there for him. But at the same time, we've got a family now, so it should be a home of a family. So it was kind of hard to weigh all that. I think that's when stuff started piling up.

So what does it look like when, or feel like when, when, quote, stuff starts piling up? Like, what's happening in your life as you're dealing with the Survivor's guilt and, all the combat that you've been through losing guys when you say that things are piling up and it starts to take take its toll on you what does that look like um if i wasn't a drill sergeant it didn't have that distraction it would have been a lot worse than it was but short temper easily angered drinking a lot um i go the doctor for i had bad headaches bad like debilitated headaches My back was jacked up. I go to doctor and they would give me 120 Perkinset for a month.

They would give me hydrocontin at the same time. Like just I had a bag of, and I'm still a drill sergeant. Like I'm still walking around going on eight, nine, ten mile road marches and just eating pills. And drinking in the evening when I get off and just, you know, didn't really have a relationship with my family. You know, luckily I was able to turn off a drill sergeant when I got home. So I had like, it's weird, I had this tree outside my house and I would like, I'd rub the tree and I would like turn off the drill so I'd like take off my hat so I can go in the house. I could be a normal person, you know. My son at the time was three, whatever.

So interact with him and that was my, that was my piece. But it was starting, it was getting bad. And I was constantly going to appointments and I go to the TBI clinic and they're like, I couldn't remember shit. I started messing up at work. forgetting stuff you know with TBI clinic and they're like you

anything will work I'd get MRIs and there'd be like a mass they didn't know what it was they'd look at it and look at it well that's reassuring when they look at your brain

and go there's some shit in there we don't even know what it is but then you go back for the next appointment it's a different doctor and you have to re-explain everything and they have to look at everything else again and nobody can give you a solid answer so

eventually they're just like I feel like they just said, we're tired of dealing with you. So they offered me a medical retirement. They didn't offer me. They told me, I asked to reclass, like, change your muscles. It's like, give me a desk job. Give me something else. And they're like, no, you're out.

So say, like, 18 months as a drill sergeant, you know, I plan to stay in the Army. So I didn't have a career lined up. And all of a sudden, they're like, you're out. And they started this new program where they were getting dudes out in 90 days. Damn. So. 90 days. I mean, I was like out of the army. And they told me, you know, like your VA benefit, you're going to get VA benefits. You're going to get retirement, all this stuff. I was like,

all right, well, that's not so bad, you know, go work at Walmart's a career or something like that. And that did not happen at all. I got out and nothing. They said, I didn't have any money. You know, I didn't have a job. My first job was working from AT&T for a call center. It was a program for veterans they did, which I didn't know it at the time, but like if you call AT&T and about your bill or something you're talking to a disabled veteran um so like people would be like thinking of your service and like how are you talking about like how do you know that but it was working from home it was like from seven to the graveyard shift which was terrible couldn't spend time my family couldn't do anything and i was like i ain't gonna work oh he's dreaming

he's got a little interjection there from uh caliber of the dog He's laying down me to good one. Yeah, yeah. He's dreaming. Oh, that's cool. Dreams, which means he's relaxed. That's good. So how long did you stay at 18T for?

Oh, like six months. The trainer was like, you know, this might not be the best job for you. I was like, really? He was like, you want to be a trainer? And I was like, we can give it a shot. And then like a manager called me. He was like, this is not going to work. I was like, well, okay.

I went to some other. program. I can't remember who it was, but this dude really helped me out. He had me to take like these assessments and like they gauge your stuff and help me write a resume. Damn, I can't remember his name right now. It'll come to me in about 20 minutes. It's a Greek name. So he put your, he helps you put a resume together and yeah, he was a veteran. He said these are some jobs that you'd be good at. Yeah, he was actually, he ran security for the Georgia lottery. I was like, that sounds kind of cool. I got towards the facility and stuff And also by the way

We just came back from Texas So we didn't have anywhere to live Like I was in Phoenix City Alabama already So we were staying there I was like whatever I was still into guns And And I was like

I want a suppressor How do you get a suppressor? So I started looking into it And I found a company that was getting Because they hadn't passed the law yet That you can have suppressors in Alabama So I found a dude that was getting ready He was like, we're going to be selling suppressor soon.

And it turned out he was the ex- Sergeant Major for a 375 Ranger Battalion. And he was running a shop in his backyard. So I went and met with him. He was like, oh, you're better? And I was like, looking around. I said, can I work for you? He was like, I'm a manager. He was doing on contract work, like spook stuff.

So he was like, he showed me how to build some guns with custom AR 15s. I found out I love that. I was like, this is bullshit. And we can build anything, design stuff. We were like actually CNC. seeing our receivers and turning around barrels and stuff. I started doing that and we started making one. What was the name of that company?

Chattahoochee Gunworks. Chattahoochee Gunwis. Is he still around? Yeah, still around. Oh, right on. Yeah, he's still running out of his basement. Awesome. I'm not going to drop his name because he still has to spook stuff too.

But, yeah, started doing that and ended up working out great. Like he was like, he started paying me retainer. And I started eventually bought it to the business. That's the one time that I started feeling like pride, my son. myself and like this is something I could do but I did that for seven years okay and then had a falling out with some stuff he was deployed we made up right after the shooting at the school which one was the bad one where everybody thought they were gonna lose their ARs I made like 120 grand in a month by myself and he

had to pay me commission for that and it was crazy but I decided to separate from that. And then I started doing contract work for Raytheon. What kind of contract work? Like gun slinging contract work? Yeah. And then working on the ranges and stuff. Okay. That was cool. But stateside or overseas? Both. Okay. And how'd you like getting back in the mix again? That was cool. It felt like, you know, one of the cool guys, you know, get to do the cool guy stuff, but you're out in the army. But I did that for about three years and then went in on a Monday and I said our contract was up and then Friday was my last day. So that was that. Yeah. And so what happened after that?

What was the next move? I had a I had an app or a resume on Indeed and a former Black Hawk colonel found it and contacted me. He owned a budget. franchise. What kind of budget blinds? Budget blinds? Yeah, it's a fringe. Like window coverings? Yeah.

Blinds. I was like, blinds, what? I don't know anything about that. He was like, I'll teach you. I was like, all right, cool. He took me in, started to pay me really good. Working for him. And he showed me in the ropes.

And I was doing pretty good, working my way up. And we had a falling out. I just, I went through a couple jobs. I just couldn't keep a job. Like, after that, I went, to work for the local city, doing maintenance stuff. That didn't go well at all.

I just couldn't assimilate with anybody. Yeah, yeah. And this is just, how's the alcohol doing it this time? You drinking a lot? Yeah, I mean, it's working well. And what about all these painkillers that you got? Would you staying on pills?

Yeah, not as much because I started regulating them stuff. I had to go like a pain management center and all that. But I definitely cut down with what the Army was giving me. But you made it up for that with alcohol? Yeah, yeah. And I got back to smoke of weed again because I could. And it just started stacking up. And I'd never really got any kind of treatment for it.

After like my second or third job, I was like, maybe I'm the problem. And we at this point, yeah, it takes a little out. I didn't that. Takes a little out of it at that. At this point, we already had like three suicides just, you know, from our unit alone. And I was like, it's not like no, like dudes going to jail for 20 years for beating somebody up in a bar and, you know, put him in a coma. Like, I saw the writing on the wall and I saw where I was at. And at this point, I had two kids.

And I was like, this is not going to, it's not going to end well if I keep on this path. So I made the conscious decision to start looking at this stuff. I went to a few programs for PTSD and stuff. I went to Chad Robeshove, you know, went to his Mighty Oaks Foundation. That was huge for me. That was a big thing. Awesome. But I was on my path to, like, get better.

But it wasn't the same at home. Like, at the time, my ex was into some other stuff and not being there to support me, I guess. The best way to say it. So it was a struggle. Like, I was fighting my own demons and then fighting stuff at home, trying to keep our marriage alive,

trying to, you know, trying to make myself better so I could be a better dad and a husband and all that stuff. And I wasn't getting, the same, you know, on the other end. So, went through a little bit more. I think finally,

that's about the time the reunion kicked off. So we had... And what sparked the idea? Because that was your idea? The reunion? Yeah, me and one of their soldiers, but he kind of bailed on me

for a couple months, but I'll probably hear this. More. So we had one of our soldiers ended up taking his own life for reasons, whatever. Is this before the reunion or after? Yeah, this is what caused the reunion. Okay, so this is what caused it.

Yeah, this is like our nine years after Romani, probably. And we were just talking, you know, I just bullshit with some guys every now and then, their text message, FaceTime, whatever, and like, nobody's seen each other in a long time. You know, guys are falling apart. They're drifting away, you know. And are you looking at the whole kind of where everyone's at? And saying like, bro, we need to get together. Yeah, that's exactly what it was.

Got it. That's when Facebook lets you do stuff like that. So I was like, well, we need a reunion because we were coming up on, it was 2016. Well, it was 2015 at the time. But it was coming up on 10 years. Like, well, let's have a reunion. So we got the idea and I just started plugging away. I had no idea what I was doing.

But it just started outsource of stuff. One, I just put a census out, see who's interested. Everybody was like, yes, yes, yes. Let's meet up. Let's get together. I started, I got a friend back home that has a lazy. Graven shop so we came out some merch some cool logos and stuff started selling that people were getting excited about that we had like go fund me account started getting some money we got money from

private people sending around a lot of people like helped us out and it started coming together we did it at hell in Georgia right outside of my hometown and i think we had about 40 50 dude show up nice and which is a pretty big deal at the time because people come from all of the country is that like a third. How many people were in the company total? 150, 200? 120. Yeah. But, you know, based after everything else, like losses and stuff like that, it was a decent turnout. Everything was paid for. We had money to, like, pay for dudes. I actually had money that set aside for bail funds. That's a good planning. Yeah. That's an NCO planning right

there, boy. We took over all of hell in Georgia and we had a great time. But to me, like, reconnected with my guys. Like, that was therapy. I didn't realize. I didn't realize. but I was like, that was therapy. And a lot of guys felt the same way when we got done. But at the reunion, one of my soldiers showed up that on Facebook, he's got all the signs and symptoms of what I had, but a lot worse. He showed up to the reunion, and he had a service dog. And he was a different person.

Like, he was not the same person. He wasn't the guy that was, you know, borderline suicide or anything like that. I was like, what the fuck? And he was like, it's a dog, man. It's a dog. And I was like, what? And he told me about canons for what. Warriors and I was like immediately came on from there and applied to the

application. Do you have dogs growing up? Yeah, I've always had a dog. I mean did you have a dog in at the time like a non-service dog? Yeah, I had a shepherd, I had a dog in Ramadi. You know, we'd have puppies that we'd find and they would fall aside on patrols. I've always had a dog in my life. So what's the difference truth? So you had a dog so when you went to the reunion you already had a dog. Yeah, but it wasn't a service dog. No, it was just really smart German Shepherd. Just a smart.

But that, and that German Shepherd wasn't connected to the same way as this guy you saw with his service dog? No, no. It was just a dog. He was just, you know, he was my best friend. It was a good dog and did all kinds of cool stuff, but it was just a dog. I didn't look at it that way. And then I saw him with his dog and I was like, you can do that.

You can take him everywhere? Like, you can take him the grocery store. You can take him in Walmart, like everywhere. Yeah, man. You know, the way he was trained was just 100% professional. And I did the application process for canines. This is before COVID. Like, it was right when I put my application in, which perfect lucked.

Application process is super long. Pretty. And as I was hearing about that, I was looking at the website yesterday, too, for the canons for Warriors. So they're trying to figure out kind of like your personality through that application. So they can figure out what kind of. a dog you need that's exactly what they do they they match your dog to you before you even get there because it's not like uh when a lot of people when i think of a service dog because i was in the service but i think of a working dog right i think of a german shepherd or a mile like that's all i think of

yeah and so i think that's just what like they're they're going to give you that dog but then when i looked at the canine for warriors website they give people all kinds of different like there's no there are every different type of dog from a freaking poodle to the damn pit bull like in everything in between Buddy one got a poodle. Yeah. Make fun about that. But I don't even know if I knew I was a gunsmith. And he was named Calibur before I even got him.

And I was like, this is obviously fate. But back in the application process. So I had to wait about 14, 15 months. And it's during COVID too. So the class sizes went, you know, from 12 to like four. So I was at that point, I started getting a little discouraged. I was like, well, this ain't going to work. And I've tried everything.

I went back to Mighty Oaks again. I was like, that worked for me. So that's another thing I want to touch on. Mighty Oaks, are you familiar with the program? So it's more. Actually, one of my buddies, well, not only Chad, who I'm friends with Chad, and he's been on this podcast, I think twice at this point. But another guy that runs at Lou Rivera, he was a SEAL teammate of mine from SEAL Team 3. Great dude.

I'm supposed to have him on the podcast at some point. But, yeah, so I'm very familiar with it. I've been briefed about it. I've looked at all the literature, I've talked to Chad, a bunch about it. And I've actually, they're kind of like my emergency button when I have a, when I have one of my friends or one of my teammates or a veteran that reaches out, that's really in a bad way. Those are the guys I call. Yeah. It's geared more towards guys in our line of work.

Yeah. Not just like, you know, I was on a fun. No discredit of them. But it's more to like direct action kind of guys that actually, you need it. So when I went there for the first time, seeing dudes like, one of my men. mentors was a PJ and this dude was telling me crazy story. And I'm like, if you can get help, there's no excuse for me not getting help. You know, seeing dudes like, you know, seals and PJs and SF guys like there to get help like that.

Maybe you do need to like reach out and get some help. So that was a motivating factor for me. So like when the canons thing. And real quick, the symptoms. Like, look, you can't hold a job. I just want to make sure that when people hear this, they go, oh. I think they might be talking about me, but like, you're having trouble to hold a job. You're taking pills.

You're drinking. Short temper. Like, what are there signs and symptoms? Forgetting stuff? What are the signs and symptoms are there that people need to go, oh, this could be me. I might need some help right now. No connection with civilians. Like, it wasn't that I wasn't good at any kind of job.

It was just that I can't connect with anybody, you know, like there's no camaraderie there. There's no brotherhood. There's no purpose, I guess. Um, it's just kind of hard to re assimilate into society and people, oh, you're a veteran and it's just one big lump you're a veteran. There's no like, they don't have a clue which you did. And I got a body mind that you know, highly decorated, you know, Ranger, Sergeant Major, he's got all the awards.

And I was like, dude, when you go to public to check out, they don't care. When you walk through Walmart, they don't, nobody cares. Like the only thing they see is the way you live your life and the way you carry yourself and every, all your accolades while they're awesome. in the military, they don't translate anything outside. And nobody really, they don't appreciate that or understand it, I guess. But yeah, that's the disconnection between civilians, I guess. And then just everything piled up.

Ruin relationships. So the first time you go to Mighty Oaks, I cut you off, but you're talking about the first time going to Mighty Oaks, you see that there's like PJs and seals and people that you're like, oh, maybe I could use some help too. Right. And definitely looked up to people like that. Like, you know, if you can admit that you have an issue, then there's no excuse for me doing it. I mean, you've done ten times the crazier stuff and I haven't seen a lot of crazier stuff.

So, you know, if you can admit that you have an issue, then there's no reason why I can't do it or anybody else can't do it. So that was kind of a kicking the nuts for me, I guess. And then you ended up going back to Mighty Oaks again? Yeah. And then how was it the second time, though? It wasn't as impactful the first time. I just felt like I needed some accountability for myself. You know, I felt like it was, I was slipping, you know, stuff getting worse.

I never had any legal problems. Never had a DUI. Never hit my wife. Never hit my kids or anything like that. But I could just see the riding on the wall. Like I'm drinking a lot, you know, smoking a lot. So I take the pills. Still can't hold a job, all that stuff.

And like, it's not going to end well. Like something catastrophic is going to happen. It's going to be bad. and I can't afford my family to go through something like that. And ultimately it would be my responsibility or it would be my fault, you know. So I have to hold myself accountable. You know, Mighty Oaks is faith-based program, which in the beginning they didn't really lead on to that. But now it's geared more towards that.

So, you know, I encouraged my ex-wife and go to church and do this stuff and start a routine, the structure, you know, like we used to have. That's another thing, not having the structure in your life and getting out. I mean, first thing I did was not shave. Like, I got two kids that have never seen me without a beard. Just, you know, having that freedom where I can just do what I want now. Can't tell me what to do. But that also is a problem, too. If you don't have that kind of structure in your life, that's how you get in trouble.

Yeah. And then, so the application process, you're waiting for a dog. you don't get a dog it's taking too much time during COVID so it just keeps getting stretched out and that's where so you go back to mighty oaks now you're done with mighty oaks and i was on a standby list because i was retired at the time and i wasn't working anymore um so i was the guy that if there was a spot open at the last minute they could call and damn they did um April of 2020 they called me and they're like, we got a spot open, graduate in class in May. And I was like, I got it.

How long is the class? It's three weeks. Okay. And it's, you live there. And the class is for you to learn how to use the dog because the dog is already trained. The $40,000, I think, is what they spend to train these dogs. And like you said, as far as matching the personality of the dog, they did that to the T. I mean, I can't tell you.

It's crazy. The way caliber is like me, we do the same thing. And he had abscessed my schedule. and he's amazing. But so end up going like two weeks before. I'd go to Walmart and shop at 3 o'clock in the morning because I didn't want to be around people. I just, I didn't, or I didn't leave my house.

I just didn't want to go out. I didn't want to have to deal with that. Really reclusive. Didn't, I really have many friends. All my friends were in the military. They're either other side of the country or still active duty. So I didn't interact with anybody. And then I was like, I'm going to have a dog.

It'll bring even more attention to me. That's what I don't want. So I almost backed out. Like I was like, but then I was like, I need this. This is, I wouldn't say it's a last shot, but it's like, you went through this much effort for your application process and waiting all this time. Like, just do it. And I went there and dude, when I tell you it's a family, like they welcome you like a family. One, the facility is amazing.

Two, they have like housemen. moms like people from the community that volunteer and cook dinner like somebody from the community drops off a meal every single night the living conditions are awesome and it was during COVID so we had like our own apartment to ourselves which kind of a funny story about caliber and sleep in our bed together but just the way they take you in like they had changed out the process a little bit so we got there early Friday morning we did all the paperwork, whatever paperwork was left. It seemed like it never ended. But the next day we wake up, we get our dogs. It's dog day, which is a huge thing. And from that moment on, we haven't been

separated. And that was May 2020. But like the anxiety building up to that, like they keep you all separated. And one guy would go out at the kennel and get his dog and walk back. And I'm like, damn, that's cool dog. And one guy will walk back with the Pluto. I'm like, no, wow. Your Pluto. But so I remember they walked me back. I was super nervous. I'm not. I used to get a dog. I don't understand that, but walked back there and saw him and his favorite toys, a chicken, which we still have for this day. And he immediately ran up to me and sat down and just floppy ears and golden brown eyes and just instant connection. And they were like, his name's Calibor. And he was like, what? Like, does y'all change it or something? His name's caliber. We've been named that for two years already. And all their dogs are rescues, too. So he was a rescue. He was in doggy jail for a while when he was first born.

And then you just go through the training and learn how to use your dog and learn the rules and, you know, what you can do, what people can't do to you and stuff like that. What's some of the things that you really rely on caliber for? Oh. So he, for one, he can identify my anxiety before I can identify it. He does this thing, which ironically hadn't done it this time. the whole, because I thought I was going to be nervous coming in here, but I'm not really nervous. But if we're like in a waiting room somewhere and I'm going to an appointment or I'm getting stressed out, he'll come and he'll jump on my lap and he'll just like make me focus my attention on him. So it distracts me from, you know, what I was anxious about.

One thing, which he wasn't trained to do, but I had a stroke like four or five years ago. I was sitting in the living room and he came up to me and like, a different way approached me and jumped to my lap and started like pawing on my chest and next thing i know like i'm starting to get paralyzed and left son of my face and stuff you legit saved my life because i was able to you know mum one of my son to call on-on-one and stuff but he uh dude he's he's he's always there like he doesn't judge me um too much he's spoiled so if he doesn't get you know everything he needs um but he's just always there for me distracts you know from anxiety.

One of the biggest, the biggest rewards for having him is interact with people. Like, I interact with people now. Like, we go out on almost a daily basis. If I don't go out, he'll start getting like kind of antsy, be like that, we'll go somewhere. You don't just go to the gas station, whatever. But being able to interact with people,

I remember the first time we were walking through Walmart and there was like an autistic kid that was having like an issue. And he was looking at the dog and the mom was like, can't pet the dog, he's working. The dog is where I was like, he can pay, you can pet him. And I let him pet Calibur and that kid just immediately calm him down. I was like, Jesus. Like, that's why he's here.

And then talking to other veterans. Like, I can't tell you how many times other veterans would come up to me and be like, dude, how did you get your dog? And that's an opportunity to like tell them like, if you need help, dude, like, that's why they're there. And just I pointed a lot of people that direction. Hopefully it helped and worked out. Probably never see him again. But the fact that, like, I'm okay with, like, talking other dudes about it and being like, yeah, I had problems too. Like, I went through stuff.

And this didn't cure me. It didn't fix it. But this is, like, the best thing that's ever happened. I've been through a lot of programs for stuff like that. And this is by far the most beneficial one. When they train the dogs, like, so it can go in and out of buildings, go on elevators, escalators, in cars. like what are the things that make this that make these dogs sort of like adaptable to so many different environments just the skill from their trainers like the i think it's like a year and

a half of they train these dogs um so they do they do like straight obedience to oh it's more than obedience like now canaan's program is advanced so much where they actually have like airplane seats that you can like you practice go to the airport you practice going through checkpoint security you practice like everything I mean, they're always changing, always adapting. And, yeah, there's nowhere he can't take them. Well, gosh, I haven't, legally, like, can't take them back to the kitchen or restaurant. But I've had my middle son had to have an emergency appendectomy a couple of months back.

And Caliber immediately knew and climbed up in bed with him. It was covered in my middle son, you know, because he was scared. He was about to have surgery. he's done that for for my wife when she's having an anxious moment like he just picks up on it and he comforts people in a way that I guess I don't know if I didn't see coming or whatever but he's there like I don't know how to explain it's kind of hard but no that's awesome um and so it's obviously had a positive impact on you yeah I mean because you're married again now right yep how long you've been married for it'll be one month tomorrow oh okay yeah

Good job, Calaver. Got it done. And you're an ambassador right now for canines for Warriors, right? Yeah. And so how big is Canons for Warriors? How many dogs are they doing a year? Oh, just crossed 1,000 dogs overall for the whole program. I want to say like six months ago.

I think they're up for like 1,200 now. They have more that they have, I think have three campuses now. Yeah, I saw the campuses on the website. They're like really nice. Yeah. They also have the mega kennel, which is the largest kennel in the world. I think, you'll quote me up, but I'm pretty sure it's. It's the largest candle in the world.

So they rescue dogs, you know, from kill shelters. That's their main thing. They rescue dogs. You know, the thing is a new leash on life, so they're saving a dog and a veteran. And that's how he was. He was a doggy Joe for a while. Saved by canines and the rest is history. And that's, I think it's, let me just check my notes here because I've got it written down on the canine for

Warriors. Canine for Warriors.org is what it is. Yeah. Caninefor warriors.org. Another big thing that helped you, obviously, because it reconnected you with your, with your brothers from dealer, is this reunion. And that's how you and I got reconnected because we got this massive reunion coming, the 1-1-A-D, Ramadi reunion, January 16th and 17th to 2026. Yeah. So there's a Facebook site, there's a website. If you Google, I've Googled it. If you Google Ready First Reunion, you'll find it.

And we've got already, I want to say like there's, I want to say there's like almost a thousand people that have already responded that are planning to come. That's awesome. I mean, this is out of a brigade of 5,600 people. I mean, it's a big brigade, but that's a huge amount of people to come 20 years later.

So it's going to be a really awesome event to get to and looking forward to seeing a bunch of people there and hopefully we'll be more well-behaved than you guys were and we don't need to set aside funds for bail money. Although for contingency purposes, we may have to do that. Well, it's on four bliss. So hopefully they'll just, you know, true. Keep us there. But one thing we tried to work in. I don't know how it's going to work out now, but I wanted to have some of our own soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines and stuff.

If anybody needed to help to go through canines, my goal was to have them go through. canons and graduate and have the dog presented at the reunion um but the the few that we had for medical reasons or personal reasons whatever didn't work out but i think canons will still be there for as far as aggracy um just to let other people know that it's a program that's out there it's program that i didn't know it existed well if somebody's hearing this right now too like there's time right oh yeah yeah yeah so if somebody's hearing this right now uh reach out and we'll get you connected and make something happen hopefully definitely and that that'd be epic uh So that's it, man.

You got a dog. You got a wife. Yeah. Pretty good scores in that order. Yeah. She said, Tiffany sitting over in the corner. Give me, give me looks. But just like a huge progress in your life at this juncture, you know, going through some of the worst combat, losing so many guys.

And now here you are kind of reassembled. Getting it done. Does that get us up to speed then? Yeah, I think so. Right on. Right on. And so for people to find canines for Warriors, I know you're not really big on the social media thing,

but for a canine for Warriors, we got canines, it's K, the letter K, then 9, and then S, and then for warriors.org, that's where it's at. And then it's on YouTube, on Instagram, and on Twitter, X, all those, the same handle,

same call sign, at same thing, K9S for Warriors, canines for Warriors. And that's, where people can find this program. Again, trying to make something happen for the reunion, maybe do a dog presentation there.

That'd be freaking epic. Very cool. But I'm sure we'll see you and Calibur at the reunion. If anyone wants to come and meet Calibur. Oh, Calver's getting fired up. She's like, here's me talking over here. He hears me talking. Also, Mighty Oaks too.

Yeah, Mighty Oaks. Biggest thing is that if there's somebody out there that needs help, it's it's not you know swallow your pride and admit it and go get it before something bad happens you know I think suicide is kind of a selfish thing to do or get yourself in trouble legally you know like there's help out there um there's plenty of places try them try if one don't work try some else or go to the gym do some m-m-a or something awesome stuff brother uh echo any our questions. Oh yeah, real quick. As far as like after the, the process of matching you guys up, you said you have two weeks, three weeks, three weeks to get to know each other. You said get

trained up on like how to, what do you call a use or, or, yeah, pretty much how to interact, use your dog. Like they know so many commands. So you have to, there's different commands for different things. You know, I can say side and he knows to come to my side and sit down. I can, I can go to the bathroom, we're going to a urinal and say, look, and he'll turn around and look behind you. I mean, he's literally covering your six. So you have to, you have to learn how to integrate all the commands that he's already been taught, when to use them. I mean, they actually, they can brace.

Like if you've got guys with mobility issues, you can say brace and you can put your hands on his back and lift yourself up. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's commands for getting underneath the seat or riding on public transportation or at a restaurant and he sits underneath the table. So you have to, they teach you how to use the dog. Yeah, bro, that's so legit too. Because you don't think about that kind of stuff, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, brother, this is like a straight. Of course, yes, companionship, all that. But it's like, this is kind of like a utility, like, friend scenario, like your little partner. So I get a motorized scooter. Like you have to learn how to use it. Yeah.

So legit. You said something real quick to you said, you get to know what people can't do to you. Or like that, like, oh, you just said, I mean, those are your words or whatever. Yeah. So you kind of, what, you get trained together and you kind of, what does that mean? Oh, you learn like the ADA laws, like where you can't take them. So, like, you know, I've had a couple instances, nothing big. Going to a restaurant and either get seated in the back of the restaurant away from everybody

or treat it differently. Like, hotels can't charge you for a pet because he's not a pet. He's a service animal. So there's a whole class they teach you on that on, like, the laws and stuff. Americans are Disabilities Act. Like, it's a whole thing. And so they just teach you how to identify that stuff. And, you know, you can't get discriminated against.

He can go anywhere. I got an Uber on the way here. and the guy kind of gave me some looks. And I was like, well, we've had this issue before with Uber. And I don't work out. How often, like that, for example, how often do you run into that? I've had him for six years and probably five times maybe. But at the same time, Canons for Warriors, they have a team of people.

That's their job. I have a, they have what's called a duty phone. It's like a CQ or whatever if you have that. It's a 24-hour number you call, if you have an issue, whatever, your dog's sick or you can't get into a restaurant. or somebody discriminated against you, you call them. And they have a way to fix it. You know, they have a lot of connection. They have a lot of pool.

It's not something you're, you're not going to make a million dollars and sue McDonald's because they won't let you come in. It's more about educating everybody else and being like, you know, look, he's, it's like a wheelchair. Like, you know, you can't discriminate. You know, the VA recognizes it now as, you know,

actual therapy. So they just teach you how to navigate stuff like that. And they're literally always there. When I say it's a family, I mean, they check up on you every month. They call you every month, make sure you and your dog are okay. I had the one I was talking about earlier that, you know, he was going through financial times and worried about his dog. They sent him like a couple of bags of dog food. I mean, they're not going to let you fail.

I think their success rate is probably up there with Mighty Oaks as far as, you know, 99.5%. I don't think they've ever had a suicide or anything like that after it. And another thing, you know, when I went to canines, before I went there, I was on 20 medications. Damn. You know, SSR stuff that I haven't taken since completely off. Like, you know, Motrin and blood pressure medicine and stuff like that, I'm off all that stuff in the last six years. And I really feel like that's because I am in Canons Wars. Yeah, plus you've got to, like, go out for walks.

Yeah, that's a total thing, too. Yeah. I'll tell you what we my my dog died um that Christmas and you know my wife was my wife was heartbroken I was heartbroken too but my wife was like you know immediately after like I don't want to get another dog like I can't go through this again and then like a few days later I came home and like my dog wasn't there the house is totally quiet and I just said darling we need another dog she says yes we do and so we we got you know new dog but and just awesome you know like you got you got to take that thing for walk you got to throw with that ball you got to just you got to get engaged he

doesn't care like he's just like wanting to have a good time and wants that belly rub in the whole nine yards and so those little things and and this is just from a dog yeah my dog he's an awesome dog but he doesn't he doesn't know the brace command not yet the way he's about to go home and learn it no but you know it's accountability for me too like one I'm representing canons for warriors and two, I have him, like highly trained service dog. Like I have to, I have to get up. I might not want to, but it's more than the hotel. Like, I didn't want to get up, but he did.

So we're getting up because I'm not cleaning anything up and not going to make him suffer because I'm too lazy to get up. So we got up and we walked. And then as soon as we start out the elevator door and outside start walking and, you know, fresh air and you're walking and start feeling better. You're like, it's because of the dog. Let's get better already. Awesome. Echo, you got any more questions? Good to meet you soon.

Yeah, man, you too. Ryan, any closing thoughts, bro? No, just what I emphasize on, a veteran out there that needs help, just don't be afraid to ask, and there's plenty of help out there. Awesome stuff, man. Well, thank you for joining us tonight.

Really appreciate it, but more important, you know, thanks for what you and your boys did from Team Dealer in Ramadi. I mean, it was relentless day after day, night after night, and you guys were always there. You guys never faltered, and we will be.

eternally grateful for your service and the sacrifice of your boys appreciate it thanks brother and with that Ryan Jackson has left the building pretty awesome to hear his story and just what he's been through what he done and I'm telling you get get the book Romadi declassified by Colonel Anthony Dean we covered on the podcast but we only covered a little bit of that book on the podcast. And the fighting was so hard. The losses were so heavy. And too, you know, as you heard from Ryan,

he was right in the thick of it the whole time. Eight hours into meme and other areas. Eight hours there. Eight hours on QRF, which is getting called all the way by the way, just to let you know. And then eight hours to prep for your next mission and eat and sleep.

It's rough. Those are some real soldiers and some real heroes. So thanks to Ryan for coming on. And just to see what Ryan went through there and then face some struggles. And then out on the other side, man, doing awesome, making progress or has made so much progress. And it's a sign to me that we can all make progress, right? And look, maybe it's getting a dog. Maybe it is, man.

I know my dog's a good dog. You got a dog too, right? I do. Technically speaking. Sure, technically. Because you didn't select your dog, right? Correct. What kind of dog is it again?

Yorkie. Okay. We've been through this before. Yes, we have. Yeah. Do you, does your dog like to get petted? Yeah. Do you like to pet the dog?

I do now, to be honest with you. But at one time, you did not. Yeah. How come? I just wasn't into it, you know, whatever. It was a dude. Dude, your ratings are going to go down, bro. It's possible, but, you know, it put it this way.

It wasn't my idea to get the dog. It was like, yet another thing. And I'm like, all right, you know, Brian, it was the classic tale. Plus, here's something I'm going to reveal about you right now. Okay. That you play it off pretty well, but let's face it. You don't like things that jam up your system. You know what I'm saying?

Am I accurate? I'd say, yeah, you're right. You don't like things that jam up the Echo Charles world. Yeah. Right? Because you're going to do what you, you like to do what Echo Charles likes to do. I'd say that's fair.

So if something's going to jam that up, technically speaking, it's not welcomed right away. It's not going to be welcomed right away. Yeah. So the dog was going to, you know, you might have to feed this animal.

You might have to take this animal. It might go to the bathroom in the house. There's all kinds of jamming up that could happen. Yes. And that's where you were against in the beginning. Yes. The, you know, the classic one.

Again, you're going to take heavies of this. And that makes sense. The whole world. It's going to be against you. I understand. Especially after you see what, what, what caliber did for, for Ryan. You're over here just not wanted to keep in mind. That's different.

Okay. Well, you know the whole classic thing where it's like, oh, the whole family rallies. You may not, you're going to get canceled. Impossible. But, you know, the family's like, hey, let's get a dog. And then the dad's like, oh, my God. Like, who's going to end up having to take care of the dog, right? It's like, so the dad's going to be against it.

And then it was like, no, then finally the dad's like, fine. I got to think outside my own selfish wants or whatever. Let's get the dog. And then the dad ends up having to train it, take care of it, and then eventually likes the dog better than everyone else does. Is that where you're at? I feel that that was the arc. What's your dog's mayor?

Maya. Maya. Maya. Yeah. Maya. All right. Maya. All right.

Well, it could be getting a dog. Yep. That gets you moving in the right direction. Yeah. So, and here was, this is why, like, I asked the questions I did because, you know, I've seen, obviously, we've seen many service dogs before, but beyond seeing them and kind of little things you hear about them, you don't really know the depth of what really a service dog does and is for, you know? So, yeah, I know I have my dog, we have our dogs and we know what they can do. So, you know, as far as like the good scenarios where it's like, yeah, it's like a little companionship, the free, you know, like that. And so, but you don't really know. But when you think about it and get more detail.

It's kind of like oh sure they're all that the companion like that whole part of it but they're trained in that whole direction Yeah, that's an important part because you know talking about like with Mike Rittland who literally trains dogs But you know how dogs They can insti they know what your mood is Yeah or they know if you're nervous about something they know it like even if a person makes you nervous they're getting like aggressive towards or they'll get alerted to your nervousness about someone or something. And so what they do, you know, apparently talking to Ryan, it's like they take the dogs and they take those instincts and they hone them and they train them.

It's like, oh, you're sad. Here's what I should do as a dog to get you squared away. Yeah. Because they already can sense it to begin with. And that part is true too. And Mike Rittling is the one who turned me onto this whole idea where it's like, bra, that makes so much sense where he's like, you know, if I know, if I know, known you for a little bit, I'm paraphrasing, but if I've known you for a little bit and or if I

didn't know you at all and I see and I say like hi and then the way you say hi back to me, I already know as just another human being like that you're kind of nervous when you said hi or that you're really relaxed when you said hi. Like I kind of know that I can pick up on that these dogs can pick up on that even more. So when you kind of consider that stuff, it's like, oh man and then you pay attention to your own dog. You're like, oh, bro, this dog can pick up on all that stuff because think about it. They're not distracted by your words or all this or stress of this or stress of they're not distracted by that they're just kind of reading you from moment to moment to moment so like all these patterns are emerging in that way so they're so in touch

with it and i noticed that too about my little silly dog it's like she just runs around like you know like i think strained for sure but she's not one of these but sometimes i am surprised i'm like brother's dog's kind of psychic in that small way seems like it how do you like my new dog i like compared to i don't think i've been around them long enough to see the difference i think they're I was gonna make a joke when you're like, then we got another dog. I say, yeah, same dog. He just looks slightly different, different color.

That's it. But yeah, same dog. Mallow, big German check. Check. All right, with that, speaking to making progress, there's more good things you can do to make progress.

Hey, a nod to Echo Charles, get some rest. Yeah, that's part of the whole thing. Yes, there it is. You don't want to get jammed up? Nope. So get some,

good rest, workout, train jihitsu, run, sprint, and make sure you're getting some clean fuel. Yep, it's true. Really, that's the three things.

Yeah, well, I know. The three, oh, I can tell you that many, many times. What you do for exercise, what you do for recovery, which is rest, what you do for nutrition. That's the fuel. Well, we need fuel.

Check out joccofuel. Check out joccofuel.com. Go to joccofuel.com. A couple good things. is authenticity because there's, I know it sounds crazy, but there's fake Jocko fuel. Just like there's fake Jocko T-shirts, there's

fake Jocko books. Like, all those things are real. But you would think, like, look, you understand to make a book, a fake Jocko book, you just take the words and, you know, print them on a photocopy, right? To make a T-shirt, oh, we don't even, we just need a silk screen, print, and the design, and we put Jocko on it and sell it on Amazon.

But you can actually get fake jaco fuel, which to me is crazy. And again, we're cracking down on it. We're on it. We're law enforcement involved. Like, it's crazy that this stuff is going on. But it goes on. But if you go to joccofuel.com, there's no, that's not happening. Also, there's like really good deals we put out on joccofuel.com and we got free shipping over 99 bucks.

By the way, our shipping used to take like a while to get stuff shipped. But we're out of that phase now. ships either that day or the morning the next morning. So it's squared away. And then we got a whole like loyalty pro, which is you know when my team started talking about loyalty programs. I quite frankly am not a big like loyalty type shopper shopper. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't even like, like I fly all over the place. People like, what airline are you? And I'm like, I'm all airlines. I'm all of them. And I'm pretty like I don't even know what my status is in the various. Airlines. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm not like, oh, excuse me, an Emerald member coming through. But, uh, so I don't know that much about it, but when they told me like, hey, you got people that are using the product all the time shopping at joccofuel.com, we should take care of them. I'm like, oh, well, 100%. So we got a bunch of things there where, you know, you can get earned points. You get money off.

You get free gifts. Again, you get like new products that come out. You get first access. There's a bunch of cool things there. And like I said, you got the subscriptions, which like between 10 and 20% off for those when you subscribe and you have to worry about not ordering it or it not being in stock. That's another thing at Joccofield.com.

Everything's in stock. For the most part, 98% of the time. Maybe 97% of the time. We got it. So there you go. Check out joccofuel.com. Also, if you don't get it there, you can get at Walmart. I heard Ryan mentioned Walmart.

He went to Walmart a lot. Today he was like, oh, you're going to Walmart. Walmart Walmart. Walmart. So we know Ryan Jackson said, Ryan, Ryan, you can get joggle fuel at Walmart. Also, Wawa,

vitamin shop, GnC, military commissaries, Afees, Hanford, Dashtores, Wakefern, Shoprite,

H.EB. down in Texas. Meyer out in the Midwest. Wegmans on the East Coast, primarily, Harris Teeter, Publix. It's another thing you heard

Ryan mentioned today. He's like, you're going in a Publix. We're going in a Publix, going in Publix and get Jago Fuel. Check that out. Also, Lifetime Fitness.

us shields and small gyms and we got a whole team that's out getting the stuff into small gyms and chiropractor's offices and uh uh hair cutting barbers hair cutting barbers the team is out because people want to have jocco fuel so if you're in one of those situations you got a little shop or something email jf sales at joccofuel dot com take care of your customer and plus make a little extra money that's what we're doing also origin USA.com, you can get jeans. You can get boots. You can get hats, belts, t-shirts,

hoodies, jiu-jitsu geese. J-jit-to rash guards. Gee or no-gee? I don't know. Look, sometimes people are ghee. Sometimes they're no-gee. Sometimes they transition. They go back.

Sometimes they're like, they're doing both. I don't know. I don't know what you're doing, but we got you covered. Like literally covered because we got rash guards or geese. Got belts. custom belts no is what we're calling them

judithu belts and regular belts by the way oh that's right at the origin it's true and by the way all this stuff is 100% made to America which is a big deal because and we've been making it in America we didn't just jump on the made in America train like seven months ago

or jump on the made America train when they started putting tariffs and penalizing people for supporting communism you're getting penalized for supporting communism okay cool we're not supporting communism over here. So go to origin USA.com and get some stuff that's made in America. Hunt gear, boots, whatever you need, training gear.

I was just skiing. I was just wearing origin. It's so good to go. So that's what we're doing. OriginUSA.com. Go get some. Speaking of having you covered, if you want to represent, discipline equals freedom, we got your shirts and hoodies, hats on there.

Got socks on there. I know I keep saying that, but it's true. Also, speaking of subscription scenario, new design every month, it's called the shirt locker. Subscribe. You're wearing that one right now that's some kind of I didn't get. You didn't get. Well, I don't understand it.

Like Ryan understood it immediately. Yes. What do you say it was? What is it? It's a, well, it's a kind of a, inspired by the old Nintendo entertainment system game cartridge of the game Contra. Okay. remember the game contra?

Yeah, because I remember you tell me about the Super Spreader or something. Yeah, hell, yeah. So, no, Super Contra has the spreader, just like regular Contra. And Spreader's one of the weapons you can get. You know, these two Ramble type guys. Anyway, it's a game.

For those who know, they know. So, yes, if you look at the video game cartridge from the old Nintendo entertainment system, this was like the graphic, but instead of Contra... He's killing donuts. Yeah, it's you. Cunning...

Donuts. Hell yeah. I like it. So that was one of the designs, I think, maybe. maybe two year or two years ago something like that anyway so yeah they're different kind of designs all representing discipline equals freedom in some capacity but they're just a little bit kind of outside the box type of stuff anyway people seem to like yes again it's called the short

locker and it's on jocco store.com check that also check out Colorado craftbeef.com and primal beef.com this is where you can get steak you can get burgers you can get jerky you can get beef sticks you can get beef tallow from Colorado craft beef I've been cooking in the beef towel now like 100% are you doing that too yes sir I am it's good to go yes it is good to go now I haven't I'm not one of these people that's like putting it on my skin yet but that's the thing yeah for real yeah I've done that so oddly um I got it wasn't from wait Colorado craft beef doesn't give the skin do the skin one right you can put it on your skin oh okay just the straight tallow just beef tallow I what so I heard about the beef towel this is good

for your skin or whatever so I was like I got this one freaking what was the company and somebody like we know anyway so I got it it's like the smaller thing more expensive quality hell yeah and I put it on I was like okay cool if that's what we're doing that's what we're doing just got to have faith kind of a thing and bro my dog just keeps like chasing me around and I'm not joking either and I never put it on after that so just know hey I'm not saying it's bad for your scam I'm not saying don't do it I'm just saying hey man the dowords just know just know what you're getting into that's all if you're to put it on your skin.

Well, even if you're not going to put it on your skin, you can cook with it. Oh, that's GTG. So check that out, primal beef.com and Colorado crafterbeef.com.

Also, subscribe to the podcast. Also check out you jaco underground.com. Those are coming out every week. We're answering questions. Check out our YouTube channels.

Check out books. We got a few books for you. For the books I referred to today, number one, Ramadi Declassified, which is from Colonel Anthony Dean. He was the Battalion commander of the 135,

a great guy and he wrote an incredible book so detailed and get that book if you can also i mentioned a book today called love nick which is notes emails recordings of david nick cromby a real moving book and just shows you the kind of people that are out there serving their country and have made the sacrifice that we can never repay. So thanks for that, Nick. And then, of course, I've written a bunch of books, everything from extreme ownership, dichotomy, leadership, leadership, tragedy,

and tactics, field manual. And then I've written a bunch of kids books as well. Matter of fact, I sent the whole rack of kids' books to Ryan a couple months ago, and he was super stoked on him, said the kids are, the kids are digging them. So, weigh the warrior kid, one, two, three, four, and five. Also, Mikey and the drive.

A bunch of books out there for you. Check those out. Also, Eschlam Front. We have a leadership consultancy. We saw problems through leadership. If you have problems inside your organization, they are leadership problems. And that means that leadership is the solution. So if you want to check that out or you need help, go to Eshlonfront.com for details. Also, we have an online training academy because leadership is skills. It's a skill that you must learn. And in order order to learn it, you must be taught. So that's why we have Extremeownership.com. It's an online leadership education academy.

But no matter who you are, no matter what's your position at work or at home, you're in a leadership position. So we want to learn how to lead and improve every aspect of your life. Go to Extreme Ownership.com. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. Incredible organization.

You know, we, through that organization, are able to help so many people. And, you know, things come up all the time. I know there was just a veteran in need that reached out, and within hours, we were able to help that individual financially. So, America's mighty warriors.org, incredible organization.

Thank you, Mama Lee, for what you do. Also, Heroes and Horses.org, taking veterans, up into nature to find their souls again. Micah Fink, check out Heroes and Horses.org. Also, Jimmy May's got an organization beyond the brotherhood.org helping seals get out of the military and establish themselves,

reintegrate to the world. And then of course, you heard about it today, canines for warriors. You heard Ryan's story. It's an amazing organization helping out so many people. And if you wanna connect with canines for warriors, on the interwebs, it's canines for warriors. And then they have a YouTube, an Instagram, a TwitterX, and a Facebook, and that is at K-9s for Warriors.

And if you want to check us out, you go to jaco.com. You can also check us out on social media at Jocko Willink and then at Echo Charles. And just be careful because when you're on there, there's going to be people that are going to try and destroy your life one millisecond at a time. One swipe at a time. Don't fall for it. Thanks once again to Ryan Jackson for joining us. And thanks to you and your brothers for everything you did for us in Ramadi, for the Army, and for America.

Thank you, brother. And thanks to all our servicemen and women with a reverent salute tonight to team dealer. Bravo Company, 26th Infantry. It's an honor to serve alongside you guys. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for your service and sacrifice here at home to keep us safe.

And everyone else out there, look, man, the path is hard. Life is hard. And sometimes things don't go well. And sometimes things get dark. And when that happens, remember the services and the sacrifices. that have been made remember that there's people that gave their lives for our freedom we owe it to them go out there and live and that's all i got for tonight until next time this is echo and jaco out